


The Breaker of Beasts

by Meatbike344



Series: Fairy Tales in the Dark [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Attempted Murder, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Explicit Sexual Content, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Madness, Minor Character Death, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Sharks, Tragic Romance, eating humans, taming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatbike344/pseuds/Meatbike344
Summary: The third death at the Fraldarius Exhibition Hall of Oceanic Beasts has left everyone shaken and there could be no one else to blame but the violent new shark-man who slaughtered all three of handlers in acts of sheer brutality.With no other options, Felix, the famed 'Breaker of Beasts' is called upon to train this wild killer before the next live show. And he is determined to break this savage creature for good, even if it costs him his life.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Fairy Tales in the Dark [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889569
Comments: 39
Kudos: 70
Collections: 2021 Dimilix Week, dimilix





	1. The Fool

No one saw it coming.

At any live show, it was a dance between entertainment and fear with the handler showing a deeply sharpened skill of pure mastery and total control, all to maintain illusion. So far, it has all been going great.

He had performed a seven foot aerial toss with the Hall’s newest exotic addition, straight from the Fraldarius Coast—a great white shark-man, the last of a near extinct species in the northern sea. When the people heard about the newest show to unveil the exotic creature, they flocked in the thousands, hurrying over to the Hall in order to catch the most anticipated show of the year.

_The World’s Last Shark-Man, The King of the Sea! Come see us dance between the jaws of death!_

It had announced in all the posters with a rather terrifying drawing of the shark leaping out the water at a tossed handler. He thought it was a tad bit over dramatic, considering how the creature—as huge and as intimidating it was with its deeply scarred fins, long tail, and sharp, broken teeth—hardly even looked in his direction since its arrival. It even refused to regard the trainer.

The handler had been doing so well, even surprised that the shark was behaving despite hours and hours of a troubled earlier session. Either way, the crowd watched in absolute delight and roared in applause once he signaled for the shark to bring his back over so he could ride him while standing.

What trick was it? A novice one, of course!

He learned it back when he was still training with young mermen—keeping his eyes straight ahead and he brought his foot out from the overarching platform and stepped on the submissive beast’s back, and then stood completely still as it slowly swam around the pool. He would blow the audience kisses and they clapped, delighted by the impressive act.

The handler whistled sharply for the shark-man to return; the dark, long shadow in the water—that scarred, chipped overhead fin—began to circle back to him, so he closed his eyes and placed his foot off the platform. It was a lot like trying to step on a slow moving train as it left the station—that’s what he always told himself when attempting this trick. He had done it a thousand times, all that mattered was timing and balance.

The handler held his breath, heard the water splash near him, and stepped off the platform.

No one saw it coming.

It had been going so well so far, just like any show at the Exhibition Hall. However, this show ended with a half-scream, the gurgling of water entering the human lungs unexpectedly, and then nothing but the ripples where the handler and the shark-man disappeared below the depths of the water.

The crowd watched in anticipation—a new trick? A turn to surprise them? The Exhibition Hall is always creating and perfecting new tricks with its creatures and the audience was always impressed in the end.

And so they waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually, the smiles and hushed whispers died away. Silence befallen the arena. The children stopped squeaking their overly expensive gift-shop toys as their mothers hugged them close.

How long can a human hold his breath? The handlers of the Exhibition were well trained and versed beyond the normal person, but even for five minutes? Six? Seven? Possibly not that long unless the spectacle was how long this handler could stay beneath the water.

And then they saw it: the blue-white waters of the still pool gradually bloomed a red-pinkish color from the depths, opening up and spreading out like ink patterns. Something bobbled beneath the surface and finally broke through, dancing along the water and in the spotlights of the arena.

A woman screamed of death; everyone bolted up from their seats and began to holler and run in different directions. They scurried over the incoming trainers and pointed frantically at the pool—some of the children half crying and babies wailing at their mother’s breasts. By the time the trainers hurried over to the pool and over onto the platform, they saw what exactly sent thousands of people into a mad frenzy.

Blue eyes of unhappiness, staring up at the heavens as the loose skin flap from a bloody torn cheek stuttered along the water’s pink surface.

A human head.

___________________

Near the gray Fraldarius coastline, marked by the constant presence of rainstorms and seasonal typhoons was a large, ceiling-less building complex with the ever-present sound of audience applause and loud splashing. Coming closer up, the eyes strain to make sense of a bustling, open-ended resort with thousands traveling in and out by the day.

From afar, one might mistake it as a grand marketplace considering all the bustling stalls scattered outside and the strange glass displays and tanks inside, but the common traveler will soon find out that this is no ordinary fair, and they knew this to be true once they set their eyes on the gigantic pools of water set in huge spectating arenas. And, most importantly, the live shows themselves with merfolk, proclaimed dangerous beasts of the sea, alongside their human handlers.

The Fraldarius Exhibition Hall of Oceanic Beasts once started as an institute of study of all the strange and rather malevolent marine life—mostly elusive merfolk—found in the turmoil waters of the region’s coastline. Of course, that’s what they kept telling people today, citing that the capture of the various creatures from the northern sea are for study and observation. Even protection from the many fishermen that sought after the poor creatures for their overly expensive meat.

Somehow, along the way, the Hall began to tame and train these merfolk at the expense of entertained spectators—giving live shows where pretty mermaids and powerful mermen performed mind dazzling tricks alongside their handlers. Sometimes there were more exotic species where people paid extra just to laid eyes on mysterious and often predatory creatures in the deep, endless abyss.

Soon, these spectacles transformed the Exhibition Hall into a tourist attraction for the region and all attempts to ‘research’ and ‘study’ the oceanic life off the Fraldarius coast became nothing but a footnote in the hall’s short history.

Felix remembered it.

He was one of the original junior researchers who interned at the Exhibition Hall back when they were making an effort to study the marine life of the coast. He remembered how they would make trips every week—just the few of them with the aid of local fisherman and coastguards out to the water to take pictures and swim along the shallow ridge, just along the dangerous territories of the merfolk.

He remembered how captures were usually temporary, the creatures taken in after being determined by the team that it was sick or weak and needed recovery; he was there when they released it back into the coast where it disappeared below the black, icy waves, never to ascend.

Of course, that was before he discovered a rare and rather grueling gift he had once the transition was made from research hall to exhibition hall—he was a tragically good trainer.

Handlers who perform in the live shows with their marvelous synergy with the marine beasts in an array of tricks and dances were only able to do so with the efforts of trainers working in the background. These trainers were the backbone of the Hall as they were the ones who directly dealt in tempering the foul and often malevolent natures of the captured Merfolk that were transported in every month. Handlers were fortunate in the pure fact that they were being given broken-in creatures to work with.

And Felix was the one ‘breaking’ them in.

The wild things that came from the Fraldarius Coast, he personally trained and turned obedient before releasing them to their assigned handlers. All trainers at the Hall were schooled in such disciplinary arts with Felix being a rare example of having picked it up in a later life.

He had a way of dealing with the merfolk—seldom not in the same abusive and hot tempered ways of his peers but through strict and rigid control and patience.

He punished and rewarded accordingly and imprinted the will of human domination so clearly in every merfolk that came his way that it was a spoken law in the Exhibition Hall that any beast trained under Felix would be the most well handled in the entire resort.

And Felix took to his job with the same seriousness as he did when he studied them—humorless, quietly passionate, and ever so dependable. Soon he was assigned more difficult and dangerous creatures to train with, often passed over by other trainers after near death experiences or handlers who returned a merman or woman for rehabilitation after a nasty incident.

Felix, too, broke these rebellious beasts down without even lifting a finger. It shocked everyone, truly, that the lanky, quiet man who came to study the Fraldarius Coastline would prove to be their best trainer yet. Naturally, a reputation builds and builds following great success, and soon the Exhibition Hall designated Felix a special role:

The Breaker of all dangerous merfolk—those rejected or failed by other trainers, and those returned by fearful handlers. He would handle the worst lot coming in from that dark, northern sea. And Felix took to this new title of his in a quiet, solemn state. Strangely enough, he was never proud over his success.

No one knew why.

Not that he ever spoke to anyone. Felix, despite being the Exhibition’s head trainer, was also the most quiet and distant of the lot. He always kept to himself, left right on the clock, and refused in small talk banter unless it was about work. This included refusing after parties in celebration of a successful show or even partaking in the Hall’s events themselves.

Felix was purely professional and nothing more. Perhaps that was why he was so successful with the creatures and even then, he was still a mystery in and of itself. However, everyone merely accepted his aloofness and Felix was given the privilege of a cool respect from afar.

It was one uneventful afternoon, after releasing a newly trained mermaid to a rather perky handler who had just joined the Exhibition Hall, Felix felt a light tap on his shoulder. He nonchalantly peered over his shoulder to meet the strong, reddened gaze of Leonie; the female trainer grinned at him and patted his back rather approvingly.

“How’s your last project? I just saw you hand her off,” she pointed out.

Felix hummed dully as he returned to cleaning his supplies for the day. The redhead was one of the more lax trainers and fitted herself a friendly face in Felix’s life. At least, that’s what she proclaimed; Felix merely dealt with her as she went back and forth to the beat of her drum.

“Nothing but the usual. She tried to bite my head off a few times but that’s expected.”

“Ah, not very challenging this time, huh?”

“Not very, no. The last few that I rehabilitated were more difficult to work with but I suppose this last month was simply uneventful.”

Leonie nodded impatiently and made a strange, clicking noise with her tongue—she was here for another reason. The woman was always in a hurry, which Felix detested greatly; always moving back and forth, always chatty up a storm, always overworking to exhaustion. He couldn’t keep up with her if he tried and simply left her to chatter.

“Listen, Felix, you heard what happened during last week’s main show right?” Leonie asked suddenly so solemn as she leaned forward, eyes drawn over curiously.

Felix stopped, but only momentarily. “Yes, the death of that transfer from Rowe, right? What exactly happened with that ugly business—I was in the isolation ward training the mermaid, remember?”

“You remember that shark the Exhibition captured a few months ago off the coast? The really big one—I mean, he’s the only one we got so far, but they say he’s really big for his kind. Yeah, well, we’re not sure what exactly happened last week. Maybe the handler provoked him or something, but the shark snapped in the middle of the show and fucking ate him. God, I can still hear the screams, Felix.” She shook her head, a flash of pain ebbing upon her usually cheery face. “I can’t even sleep at night.”

“Isn’t that the third death since we caught the beast?” Felix asked quietly, trying not to let his apprehension show.

Fatalities were immensely uncommon in the Exhibition but not so rare; there were a few deaths, but those were mostly accidental from a handler falling off the back of a merman and hitting his head against the side of the tank to a trainer drowning after roughhousing with one of the newly captured subjects. Even then, _nothing_ compared to the absolute horror left in the wake of the shark-man.

The first death was ruled as an accident, at least by some accounts. The first handler had been a senior member of the Exhibition Hall and was given the privilege of dealing with the last shark on the Fraldarius Coast.

It was during a small, private show—only for the board members of the Hall in order to properly gauge the shark’s behavior and the pair’s synergy—where the handler was suddenly dragged underwater by the creature and promptly drowned. There was nothing that could be done, even as some of the trainers came out and tried to coax the shark-man away.

The board members who were there that tragic day denied that the death was intentional, that the handler’s wetsuit got caught on one of the jagged edges of the shark’s scarred fin and was dragged down from the creature’s descent.

The trainers, on the other hand, continued to push forward with a different narrative: the creature had dragged the poor man down by the leg and held him there until the water filled his lungs and his body stopped thrashing.

Of course, there was the second incident and this was one more a debated topic between the trainers and handlers themselves. After the ‘accident’, the shark-man was sent into isolation to be retrained and then assigned to another handler. A rather hot-tempered woman who was known among her peers to be rather rough with the merfolk she’s paired up with.

This time it took place during a feeding session, which was usually public so the spectators walking through the Hall could stand by and watch. That day, there were only a few people and some trainers and fellow handlers on standby.

The handler had been coaxing the shark-man to accept the usual meal of raw fish meat mixed in with proteins, but the creature was hardly budging. It was watching the woman offering him the slop bucket from the platform but did not move. This was here that the official reports began to split in opposing details.

From the handlers, the shark mistook her gestures to be something threatening and knocked her off the platform, sending the woman into the water where it attacked her. From the trainers, the handler was growing frustrated and began throwing food at it, angrily shouting from the platform. The creature fell into a rage and knocked her down.

She quickly died from her wounds and the blame of her tragic death was thrown left and right between ‘hot-headed’ handlers who mistreat the creatures under their care and ‘incompetent’ trainers who did not properly break down any of the merfolk during isolation.

And the shark-man was thrown back into the rotation once more.

With the third death, the most bloody and grievous act of pure violence anyone at the Hall had ever witnessed, it was the final straw. It became very clear that the exotic creature picked up from the depth of the Fraldarius Coast was the most dangerous the Exhibition Hall has ever dealt with. A living liability that hardly made them any money and cost them more to keep than anything else.

There were openly malevolent creatures that trashed around and bare their teeth, but were the easiest to break down. There were more subdued merfolk who lashed out once in a while, but not enough to worry about.

And then there was the shark-man and none of the trainers knew how to deal with him—his nature seemed almost bottomless, impenetrable, and deeply loathing of those who had the misfortune of re-training him for the next handler. He hardly responded to commands, stared with those sinister blue-gray eyes at any person who braved themselves near his tank, and calculated brutal attacks in the most horrifying ways. It got so bad that the last trainer had to work in a separate cage in the isolation tank.

“Look, Felix, I know this is too much to ask, especially since you just finished up on the mermaid but…,” Leonie trailed off but her eyes were still centered dead on Felix’s unresponsive back. “I’m the next trainer in the rotation and I don’t think I have the skills to break this one. But also, one more attack on a handler and they’ll put the poor thing down.”

“If that beast is going to act savagely, it will die savagely,” Felix muttered as he scrubbed his tools cleaned, trying to keep his mind occupied as best he can. “As my brother always said: if you’re going to act like a mad dog, you’ll get taken out back and shot like one.”

“Oh, come on, Felix! You can’t possibly believe that! Besides, his kind is nearly extinct and I don’t want this shitty zoo to think they have the right to put down any creature that ‘steps out of line’. I think he’s scared too, being kidnapped from his home…”

“You’re too soft. We’re not researchers, you know. Not anymore,” Felix added softly as his movements became more erratic and tense, with his entire upper body moving into the sink. He did not want to hear about this—not from her, the sentiment fool.

Leonie sighed and touched her forehead. “Felix, please. I know I won’t be able to manage him and all the other trainers are scared out of their mind! But I also don’t like the prospects of the poor thing being sent to be some abused spectacle in Hrym or even given to the lab for euthanization. Please?”

Felix threw down his tools and it landed at the base of the pooling sink with a scatter; he muttered darkly beneath his breath and slowly turned around to meet with the overly-dramatic pleading expression of Leonie’s face, half-sincere and half-smug at her own ability to coax the man out. She was one of the few who had such sway over them—they had the same research internship, of course. Felix breathed very slowly through his nostrils, pacifying his own irritation, and made a gesture with his fingers.

“Show me where the beast is so I can get a good look at it.”

“Oh, thank you! But I must warn you before we head back there—he’s not exactly in a friendly state since the last show. You might need to get into the cage for protection,” Leonie warned, her voice slightly on edge.

Felix put on his wet gloves. “I know what I’m about. Now take me to him.”

___________________

The isolation ward was a closed off part of the Exhibition Hall and was primarily used to train and break in any new captures off the Fraldarius Coast. The trucks would come in at the docking port and the forklifts would haul the large tanks inside. All manners of creatures came through—seahorses, clown fishes, lion fishes, dolphins, all with pretty fluttering fins and wondrous colors.

Of course, there were the merfolk who were ‘returned’ by handlers who had problems dealing with them during shows. The new and the old—beasts of burden regardless, and the trainers spent a majority of their time including Felix who found it his personal sanctuary away from the rest of the bustle of the Exhibition Hall.

The entire ward lit up ever so slowly with the flicker of the overhead lights, illuminating the puddles all along the concrete floor. The large pools, which were imprinted into the ground and divided in their own sections, were empty with most of the newly trained merfolk already sent out with their assigned handlers. Save for the largest pool at the very end of the ward. Once the lights came on, Felix and Leonie immediately went straight down.

This particular pool was something of a luxury in itself, considering that it was the same size and depth as the main showtime pools out in the Exhibition Hall. However, this also meant that it housed the largest and most difficult of the merfolk thus, marking the largest pool Felix’s personal home base. How many times did he return to this irritable pool with its near-broken heater, always in maintenance with the Hall’s mechanics, and how the overhead platform was never properly in place so it usually collapsed with too much weight.

It could make anyone go crazy.

By the time the pair reached the pool, Leonie put out a single arm to stop Felix from entering the area. She looked at him with large, unmoving eyes and placed a single finger against her lips. The woman gestured to the disturbingly still pool, blue as the sky with its descending depths an unseeable gray. Off to the edge was the cage, nearly submerged underwater with the top left open for any trainer to slip inside. Leonie peered nervously all around the pool, her eyes darting left and right nervously, and then she tugged on Felix’s stiff arm.

“Okay, m-maybe he’s asleep. I mean, they did shoot that thing with too many tranquilizer darts. He’s probably resting in the bottom. Now if you could get in the cage, you might be able to take a good look at him---”

Felix had already knelt near the edge of the pool and began to strike the water with the back of his hand, sending violent ripples all along the surface. Leonie watched, horrified.

“What are you doing?! You’ll wake him and make him mad!”

“Exactly, Leonie. I need to know what I’m dealing with,” Felix explained curtly.

He swung the back of his hand up, sending splatters of water up in the air and dying with a few thin droplets on the other end. The violent ripples across the pool shivered the clearness of the blue and the soft rays of sunlight coming in from the open skies. At the very bottom, which cannot be properly seen due to how deep the pool was, began to move with shadows. Shadows drifting around and around until it got closer to the more shallow surface of the water, and there, Felix saw it:

The ragged, scarred, gray visage of death incarnate from a watery grave—A shark’s fin.

Felix did not move, even as his redheaded partner backed up in apprehension and watched from a safe distance. The shadows eventually took shape in a large, muscular form, marked with nothing but jagged, sharp edges and the most intimidating tail Felix had ever laid his eyes upon. The menacing shadow circled around the surface momentarily before its large black fin broke through the water like a sharpened knife through butter—so seamless and the water parted like mist with the invading body.

When Felix was a boy, he always wanted to see an adult shark up close. The great kings of the northern sea were considered an endangered species back then and even when Felix got accepted into his research internship at the Exhibition Hall, possibly hoping to study one at the coast during some of their explorations.

However, Felix understood very keenly that this shark was the last. And the _biggest_. And the most _dangerous_.

What was so different about the pictures he read as a child nestled under the covers?

Shark-folk prowling the depths and hunting down other merfolk and even unfortunate humans that crossed their territory. Sharp fangs and powerful bodies of purple muscle cutting through the depths of the water like air, with bottomless, hungry eyes.

Unlike the other merfolk, sharks were hulking warriors, already armed for the killing with a nature so intricate in bloodshed and slaughter. Those pictures always managed to both fascinate and scare Felix—the deliciously beautiful horror of the sea’s most feared predator.

Somehow, locking eyes with the real thing suddenly forced the famed ‘breaker of beasts’ back into his childhood once more, back when he recognized and held fear intimately. And Felix almost laughed; he did not realize that he could still feel such an emotion before.

The shark that watched— _eye-fucked_ him, was a mighty thing, completely throwing all expectations Felix had beforehand; he was nearly fifteen feet long and hulking with great muscle, which shone under the morning light with white-marbled inclines upon his human torso. His body was lined with deep wine-white scars, marking lines of old battles from long before. And a strange cross right over the shark’s right breast.

A black tail, an extremely large yet jagged fins as if torn by another creature, a head of golden hair, and a single eye. An endless, deep blue-gray like the northern sea during a tempest. The other eye was gone, replaced by the hollow, black space. Like an abyss.

And suddenly, Felix lost his voice and could no longer move in the hypnotizing, hungry stare the shark-man was giving him. They stared at each other from a good foot away, Felix half kneeling at the edge and the shark-man in the middle of the pool. The only sounds in the entire ward was the small echoes made by the droplets of water hitting the surface of the pool.

The shark was looking at him. At him alone. Not to Leonie. Not to how the sunlight bounced off the water and struck some of the more reflective equipment in the background. Just him with those intense, stormy eyes sucking him like a typhoon that leaves a destructive wake along the coast.

Finally, Felix gave a long, impressed whistle and tilted his head curiously.

“So, this is the _beast_ that killed three of our own? Makes sense. Just look at it. It’s not meant for domestication—parlor tricks and doing back flips in the air like a dolphin,” Felix remarked coolly. The shark seemed to understand him somehow and narrowed his single eye at him, burning a hole right at the trainer’s guarded face—all blue, gray, and stormy. Felix did not waver. “Even still, I still gotta break it—make sure the next handler doesn’t end up in another body bag. Leonie, could you hand me some of that raw meat from the feeding bucket.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Felix. But hey, you know what you’re doing,” the redheaded woman muttered beneath her breath.

She’s spooked and uneasy from just being in the same room as the shark-man but the creature hardly paid her any mind. Felix simply wondered if the creature understood that he was there to retrain him like the other two. He wondered if it knew that this would be the last time of its ill and dangerous temper. Either way, Felix had a long job ahead of him.

Leonie placed the feeding bucket left behind from his last training session beside his thigh and Felix immediately scooped up a handful of red fish meat. It dripped between his gloved fingers and the man gave it a wet squeeze right in front of the shark, hopeful in inciting a reaction of the large creature.

But the shark remained perfectly still. Perfectly possessed and overtaken by Felix’s presence. Somehow the trainer felt a tinge of apprehension soar through him like a spark of electricity—there was something dangerously wrong with this creature and he could not put his mind on it. Most merfolk would waver at the sight of food but this one doesn’t even seem to react at all.

He looked hungry but for something else.

“Felix...maybe you should get into the cage before you even think of feeding him. Ferdinand almost lost his arm last time,” Leonie whispered to him but the trainer waved it off without a second word.

Felix straightened his back and slowly extended his arm out over the water, still clutching onto the meat. Like every start of a training session, Felix would test the nature of his assigned beast; he would offer them a piece of meat and gauge their reaction—how their instincts kick in, how they partake to the meal at hand. Some cower at the sight of his arm and swim at the far end of the pool, some gradually accept the offer with their eyes dead centered on the man, some even tried to bite his whole hand off in blood lust.

But the shark-man was none of them. He was outside of convention itself. And he was something beyond Felix’s own skills and expectations.

The shark swam over after a minute delay, his body cutting through the water in powerful motions, and—completely taking both Felix and Leonie off guard—viciously slapped the meat out of the trainer’s hand. Without a second thought, he grabbed Felix’s arm and yanked him forward in the water. Leonie gave a blood-shrilling scream but Felix wasn’t able to capture the whole panic of it; he was submerged so violently into the water that it rushed into his lungs and ears like a geyser and all he could hear was a distant drumming.

When he forced open his eyes to the stinging blue pain, he managed to make out the smudged image of the large shark pulling him down, deeper and deeper into the water—his body much bigger and intimidating up close with nothing but sharp edges, blue black skin, and the one eye. He leered at Felix rather excitedly before tugging the disoriented trainer closer and opened his mouth, revealing a fine row of sharpened teeth, glistening a deadly white.

Everything was all colors and noise. Terrible, terrible noise. And Felix could hardly see a damn thing. But he knew pain when he felt it and he knew death when it approached. His reflexes, hardened after so many close calls and the pure experience alone, kicked in like an engine, and the man quickly swam to the side before the shark could rip his throat out.

Like clockwork, he threw his arm around the creature’s neck into a tight choke hold and used up all of his strength to toss him to the side before letting go. Using the momentum, Felix propelled himself upward and breached the surface of the water. There, Leonie had already donned her wet suit and held a choker pole in her hands; the woman immediately spotted Felix and threw the pole out for him to grab. Felix scrambled for purchase and was yanked out of the water, right before the water below him roared, blue turning white with froth.

The shark-man had jumped out, teeth baring and hungry, and he fell right back with a violent splash. Water sprayed all over the frantic trainers and the chaos lingered for a minute before it all died away with the return of waters dripping down all over the place in methodical drops.

Leonie was the first to succumb to her shock. “I told you! I told you to get into the damn cage! Why did you do that?!”

Felix took a minute before he could properly speak, trying to catch his breath in long intervals. He shook his head as pointed to the pool, still panting wildly. “Because...I needed to gauge its nature…”

“Felix, he’s a fucking shark that killed three handlers. What the fuck did you think he was going to do?”

“You got me there…,” the trainer wheezed out.

He finally straightened his back out as the color returned to his paling cheeks and turned around. The waters had finally settled down with the shark circling just below the thin surface with his torn fin marking his presence. After a minute, the creature surfaced and stared at Felix, wide-eyed and full of surprise.

Neither had expected the sudden mutual display of violence.

“At least I know that it’s a crafty bastard, the _beast_. No merfolk I ever dealt with rejected a meal from the feeding bucket for a taste of my arm. Or perhaps it’s still bloodthirsty from tearing up that last handler,” Felix remarked ruefully, watching the shark with narrowed eyes. “Either way, this thing is going to take all my efforts.”

“You think you’ll break him?”

“I _know_ I’ll break it. By the end of my three month contract, it’ll be eating out of my hand.”

“Wanna bet on it?” Leonie asked, leaning in with a playful smirk.

Felix usually never partook in foolish games but being around Leonie provoked a strange sense of silliness in him. And the clear rise of competition. The trainer broke gaze with the creature and stared at his redheaded comrade, cocking his head. “How much?”

“Drinks on me at the bar.” The woman smiled, smug. “All night. Anything you want. Even top shelf.”

Felix hummed, restraining a chuckle at the base of his throat. “You’re on. I hope you’re prepared to pay up that drink tab of yours,” he declared.

Leonie nodded over to the pool. “Granted that you don’t lose your arm first.”

Felix followed her gaze back over to the shark who had not removed his gaze from the trainer since the attack. Its own gaze was vexing and dark, clearly irritated by Felix’s clean escape. But at the same time, the trainer could see something else that heightened the longer he stayed in the room: intrigue. Bottomless, consuming intrigue. It fell over the shark-man’s cold expression and rendered him possessed with all terrible feeling, paralyzed even.

“Does it have a name?” Felix asked shortly.

“He failed training two times already so they had not given him a permanent name. So now, for now, they’re going to refer to him by his serial number. That would be 1220. But, the handlers are calling him by a fun, fun nickname,” Leonie explained.

“And that would be…”

“The Beast.”

Felix could not help but smile darkly at this. “How appropriate. But I hope it knows that I won’t put off anytime soon. It will bend to me.”

The shark closed it’s eye socket, tipped its head back, and leered down at Felix with all of his dagger-sharp teeth showing in a sinister, hungry sneer. It was a look Felix knew this creature had reserved for him alone, considering all accounts of pure apathy from his peers.

This creature was neither a beast of burden or something easily submissive—it was a killer, through and through, and Felix’s rejection of his own death sent something dark in the shark. And something exciting.

Felix allowed the corner of his lips to pull up, revealing his own sharp canines in a kind. This was going to be his most difficult work yet and somehow, he was driven by a foreign momentum.

The challenge? The opponent? Nothing but a long, unknowable fight ahead of him.

___________________

When Felix was a young boy, his big brother Glenn took him out fishing for the first time in the Fraldarius Coast.

They took a small motorboat out into the icy waves and stopped just short of the border line where the red markers bobbled in a disjointed line. Glenn had shown the boy how to hook bait properly through the hook and cast the line out. 

Felix, already so shaky from having to watch his worm friends pierced with a sharp piece of metal, was already so flustered when his brother gently pushed him to throw his line far out into the black murky waters.

Despite his shakiness, he was already so used to his family’s love of seafood; his father had taken him shrimping at night where the sea was lit up but small lights of floating signal towers. Glenn had shown him how to throw lobster cages and pull it out without snapping the line. He also took Felix out to see some of the merfolk swimming around near the bay, even spoken with some of them—at least, the ones who could talk.

Most merfolk were scared of humans. Mistrustful of them. But children were fine. They were pure.

Soon, after ten minutes of absolutely nothing but shaky black waves, Felix felt a tug on his line. The poor boy pleaded for his brother to come and grapple him as he felt himself pulled violently against the unknown pressure tugging in the water. Glenn abandoned his pole and threw his arms over Felix’s, whispering sweet encouragement in his younger brother and they pulled together.

But the line was fighting with them. There was a hidden violence they were fighting against, so eager to drag both boys down into the watery depths. Felix felt his brother tug him gently from behind and before he knew it, they threw themselves back and the line was freed; on the other end was a sight too strange for eyes.

A young merboy was caught on the other end.

The creature landed in the boat with a groan and the two brothers stared in a shared awe. Felix dropped his fishing pole and scrambled over to see the merboy, who was looking around frantically before dropping his blue gaze onto the younger brother. No one said a word, not even Glenn who sat back at the end, eerily cautious.

The waves roared.

“Glenn, what kind of merfolk is this? I never seen anything like him,” Felix asked, blinking as his eyes strained all around the creature.

Unlike the merfolk he had spoken to off the rocks of the beach, this one was neither very colorful or slender, but had a slightly long body with small sharp fins and black skin save for the pale human torso. The merboy had a head of rich golden hair and two huge blue eyes that gazed back at Felix in kind, in equal fascination and fear. They even seemed close to the same age, with Glenn towering over by a few inches.

The older brother brushed the underside of his chin and hummed lightly.

“I think that’s a shark.”

“Really?” Felix leaned forward until his small face was inches apart from their new companion, who reeled back and watched him with the biggest and blue eyes he had ever seen. Bluer than the azure waves of Derdriu and beyond. “But he’s so small! Aren’t they supposed to be...larger?”

“He’s just a pup, Fel. Come, let’s throw him back in before papa shark goes searching for him,” Glenn said with a nervous laugh.

He slowly crawled over with his arms out, gesturing for Felix to help him pick up the merboy. But the younger brother slapped the older boy’s hand and shook his head with a small frown.

“Glenn, no! I can do it,” he declared and already settled over the young shark.

Felix smiled down as the creature continued to stare at him, wide-eyed and speechless. He did not even move when the small boy carefully coiled his arms around that wet body and picked him up into a friendly hug. They stared at each other and the dark-haired boy’s heart gave a strange thump; the shark was pretty up close, especially how his eyes seemed to resemble jewels of some kind.

“It’s okay. I’ll set you free now. You get to go back home to your family!” Felix whispered sweetly in his ear before setting back down into the water.

The small shark slipped in with a tiny splash before slowly ascending up. He stared up at Felix, who watched him from the edge of the boat with an encouraging smile. He waved his hand out and nodded, pleasant and amiable.

“Go on! Your father must be worried about you.”

But the shark did not move. Instead, it made the tiniest gesture for Felix to come closer, shy and demure. The dark-haired boy blinked before leaning over the boat as Glenn whispered for him to sit back. And before Felix was able to register it, the creature leaped out of the water and kissed him on the lips.

It was a short, chaste kiss but a kiss nonetheless and he watched as the shark fell back into the water and disappeared with the murky darkness.

Glenn tapped his younger brother’s shoulder with an expression leaning so closely towards outright laughter. He merely snickered and scratched the back of his head.

“You know, it’s gonna make things a lot harder around here if you start dating the sea life.”

Felix never went fishing again. However, the memory of his first encounter with the shark set the long standard for any years to come. From studying marine biology to looking at essays regarding human and merfolk interaction, and especially the sharp decline of the shark folk population with the dangerous oversharing off the coastline.

By the time he was accepted to the Fraldarius Exhibition Hall of Oceanic Beasts on a research internship, the intentions had already begun shifting and the man was caught in the great wave that followed.

At some point, Felix wanted to leave. He was good at training the merfolk but despised the whole institute entirely. And yet he stayed. Was it for Leonie? Was it for the hope that the Hall might return to its humble roots? Or was it the fact that deep down, Felix didn’t want any of the merfolk to be mistreated by the Hall itself? That as long as he was here, nothing bad would happen to them.

Either way, he stayed. He stayed and quietly went on with his work, even as the captures became bolder and exotic. As the training sessions got more harsher and difficult. Some merfolk didn’t even know how to read gestures due to being isolated so far from human contact.

Then there was the Beast.

The first day was always the roughest—this was the general rule of thumb all trainers followed by. And Felix would be reminded of this truth the minute he stepped into the end section.

Surprisingly, _it_ was waiting for him, watching the trainer from the middle of the pool with the same hungry expression. The last two trainers had mentioned a great problem with ‘apathy’ and ‘reclusive’ regarding the creature with most of the training spent trying to lure the shark up from the bottom of the pool.

And to a degree, Felix was prepared for this. But it seemed like the creature was betraying all conventions today.

The trainer dropped his tools at the back wall, keeping his eyes down around the wet floor before slowly riveting up to meet the shark-man’s gaze head on. It’s always a storm, intense and conflicting. There was nothing at all calming with this beast and Felix had never seen something in any of the other merfolk before. Perhaps that was the consequences of capturing a predator and expecting it to play dress up.

Felix stepped forward and tossed his jacket over his shoulder, revealing that he already donned his wetsuit over his slender, pale body. The creature seemed to eye him closely, especially when he began to put his long back hair up into a bun—then Felix gave a sharp whistle through his teeth and knelt near the edge.

“I know you can understand me,” Felix started mutely. “And I know you could understand the others as well. And you gave them such a terrible time. But you won’t pull the same shit with me. No, I will be here for as long as it takes until you bow your head and clap your hands like one of those seals, do you understand me?”

The Beast took his arms and splashed the water near him, drenching Felix completely.

The trainer did not move and merely blinked. He stared dead at the creature, watching it give him a sharp-toothed sneer—almost chuckling, and he could not help himself grimace. Felix wiped his nose, and rose to walk over to the overhead platform.

The feeding bucket was already there for him along with some equipment—hoops, beach balls, flings, and other things for trick practice. Beside that, was a training dummy, which was simply a human torso mannequin. Felix stood steady, making sure the platform was secure before kneeling down.

“Let’s start with something simple. I know the others did the same with you already, but one can’t be too careful.”

Felix stood up and prompted himself carefully on the feeding port—which was a high, extended part of the platform used by both trainers and handlers alike to feed the creature, through three different ways; by dropping the fish into the water, by holding it up and forcing the creature to jump up from the water, or by throwing it high over the pool and having them jump higher and more dramatically in order to catch it. One trick, three ways, three forms of difficulty.

Felix steadied himself on the port and picked up a fish from the bucket. He peered down at the water below, peered down at the shark who began to circle around the small space where the port peered over—his eye never leaving Felix’ face, not once.

Felix held out a fish, counted down to three, and dropped it; the Beast immediately opened his mouth, his fine row of sharp teeth shining in the sun, and swallowed the meal whole. He kept his gaze on Felix and licked his lips, even lifting the corner of his mouth to remind the trainer of his assets. The man was not amused.

“Alright. Well, this is no better than a child throwing food at caged beasts. Let’s see how you fare with this.” Felix picked up another piece of fish and extended his entire arm out over the water, the meal dangling from his fingertips. He whistled and gestured for the Beast to jump up and accept it.

As expected—or at least, as he expected, the Beast jumped up from the water effortlessly, but made a grab for Felix’s arm than the fish; the trainer quickly took his other hand and knocked the shark-man mid-way with a light slap, sending him awkwardly back down into the water. Felix watched as fizzling white died away to murky blue before that head of golden hair and the vengeful blue eye slowly emerged from the calming surface and glared at him.

Felix clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Naughty. You really think you can pull one on me after that stunt of yours yesterday? I’m no fool.” The trainer kept the fish in his hand but stepped back a bit, somewhat withdrawn and solemn. “But we’re not dropping this. Keep misbehaving and I won’t reward you. Now jump for me, you crazed thing!”

His arm swung back and then forward in a wide motion as his fingers let go of the fish, allowing it to fly right over the pool. There was a moment of grace, between the Beast actually gaining momentum from his swim to properly launch himself back up from the water and the fish making the journey midway over the pool.

Here, Felix could see the full appearance of the creature right in front of him—The Beast was _huge_. The largest merfolk he had ever seen. With black skin going on pale and deeply marked with a never-ending collection of white scars. And for a moment, the trainer lost his breath.

Until the Beast jumped higher than the fish’s trajectory, moved his entire body down into a flip, and used his fin to knock it back into Felix’s astonished face.

Then the trainer lost his balance.

Felix staggered off the port and plunged into the depths below with the shark-man diving right in after him. Most trainers wore water-proof contacts if they could manage it and Felix was no different; he opened his eyes and met with the icy, cruel stare of the creature. The Beast grinned at him, propped two muscular arms on Felix’s shoulders and pushed the trainer deeper and deeper down into the bottom of the pool.

Well, this was a new one.

Felix felt his back hit the bottom, the coarseness of the floor scratching through his wetsuit and into his skin. The trainer tried to move, tried to wiggle from the shark, but the Beast had completely pinned him against the pool floor—sharp claws digging painfully into his skin.

The shark-man was staring wide-eyed at Felix, unwavering, almost making sure that the trainer would not try anything—he wanted Felix to die. To drown here in his arms and feast upon his dead body. To be nothing left but bones floating aimlessly in the water for the cleaners to discover.

And Felix was not good at holding breath like his other peers.

The trainer frantically tried to kick his legs up but felt the weight of the Beast’s heavy tail draped down over them, nearly crushing his thighs into the floor. In fact, the shark-man’s entire body was pushing against Felix, and he was completely immobilized save for his head, which he shook back and forth in the futile attempt to loosen himself.

His heart was throbbing loud in his ears, his lungs were ready to burst from the pressure, and the only thing on Felix’s mind was _breathe, breathe, breathe!_ He never been in this position before, never been so close to death that he could feel at the tip of his tongue, and it tasted horrible. It tasted like something so dearly denied to him and something he will never have. His body ached and swelled and no matter how hard Felix thrashed, he could not fight against the iron strength of the Beast.

Finally, Felix’s adrenaline kicked in, he lost all logic of the human mind, and he rushed forward with one last solution; Felix captured the Beast’s cold lips in a biting kiss.

The blue-gray eye lit up with shock—so paralyzed by the action that he went still like a marble statue, and it all stuttered to red pain when Felix bit down hard on the shark’s bottom lip. The creature’s grip loosened almost immediately and the trainer kicked himself away as he scrambled for the surface.

Felix quickly breached the surface and caught the crisp air fully into his swollen lungs; the sweet sensation of life rushing along his bruised skin and he hoisted himself up onto the edge to fall on his back, breathing out loudly and in long, desperate gasps. The throbbing at the corners of his eyes eventually died away until the imprints of his veins faded back into the darkness.

Then the stillness.

Felix felt the raw blossom of blood coat his wetsuit from his shoulders and how his back stung with a road rash; his dark hair was fanned out along the floor like a spilled bottle of ink, and even floated along the water as if a droplet struck a clear basin before spreading out. His eyes were strained dully to the sky as every breath he took brought him closer to consciousness. To thinking. To recognition.

Finally, Felix lulled his head to the side and stared out to the pool.

The shark, the Beast, was there again. Watching him.

But the gaze was different. The heat was unknown. The feeling was alien. It no longer held the same intense heat but something closer to shock. To astonishment. The shark was taken over by what had just happened that he could barely function—not enough to even lick his bleeding lips clean. He allowed the blood to dribble down from the bite cut and down his chin, where it dropped into the water and blossomed like tiny flowers.

Even their usual stare-off was different. Mind-shot to the utterly confused. Then an emotion he could not recognize on the shark’s face. It almost looked like bottomless hunger. Like recognition.

Felix then closed his eyes and gave himself up for the day. This was the first time he would ever have to call it quits this early and it shamed him deeply.

As a rule of thumb for every trainer: the first day was always the worst.

___________________

Training never grew to be as bad as that first incident, but the Beast neither relented from his disobedience and clear intent to hurt Felix nor did the trainer relent in his harsh persistence and rigid structure.

The two were still at terrible, strained odds.

However, there was a bizarre development that came from it—the shark never seemed to cross the line with drowning Felix again. Never so dramatic and true in his attempts to lure Felix down into the water. But he did try to bite his arms and legs off several times, which the trainer treated as a good sign.

As for Felix, his development was something of an unwanted product: he had become scared of the shark. Not scared in the way of those who feared insects or heights, but it was dull, underlying, and constant fear that ate him in the most inconvenient ways and reminded him fully of the Beast’s strength and hatred. One wrong move and Felix could be dead, nothing but teeth, hair, and bones.

Appropriately, Felix’s training began to reflect this with the introduction of distance—he kept a safe space away from the water, just a half foot from the platform and port edge, but still made the Beast undergo tricks and be disciplined accordingly. The equipment, luckily, was long enough to be hung over the water and Felix watched as the shark slowly relented to all the parlor tricks.

The next few weeks alone was nothing but getting the Beast readjusted to the usual spectacles of the handlers save for the more physical ones, and soon there existed a good rhythm between the pair so far as distance was a factor.

But parlor tricks were just one quarter of the training—there was building respect between the trainer and the merfolk, and that meant physical contact.

Felix had to swallow down this newly founded fear of his and prepare for this portion of training at hand. Usually, the trainer had to get in the water from the platform and physically adjust themselves while allowing their own presence to be accepted by the creature.

It was both a bonding activity but an important practice for the creature to accept the person’s presence in the water. To feel calmed and controlled, especially with a roaring crowd. The trainer was it’s friend and that was what this particular training was about—cultivating trust and respect together. Made things much easier for the handler too.

However, Felix was not ready for that.

Perhaps he should have known that he was not ready the minute he decided to ‘test the waters’ by throwing the human mannequin in the pool. In mere seconds, the poor rubber man was torn to shreds in what he could only describe as a live show of his own fate in the water. It bobbled for just a second before the jaws of death pierced the surface and clamped down on it’s pink neck. Felix watched in silenced horror before walking away to ponder.

This eventually led to the man relenting to the prospect of slipping inside the cage. It was clipped to the side of the pool and submerged with just a small upper part in the air—only used in the event of a particularly troubling case, usually merfolk who were undeniably a threat to their trainer. It was put in when Ferdinand had trouble with the Beast.

The first trainer before him apparently never even got in the water.

Felix allowed himself to slip inside and closed the overhead door. The Beast was still munching on his last reward enthusiastically—the reward being some mackerel drenched in blood. While most rewards were taken too rather happily thus, making training easier, the shark hardly seemed to care for it and only accepted so he wouldn’t starve. By the time the cage door snapped shut, the shark whirled his head to the sound and stared at Felix, gawked even.

“That’s right, you big bastard,” Felix growled and he hooked his fingers on either side of the cage and allowed his body to sink into the water, right up to his chest. He sneered at the creature, even throwing his head back with a despondent expression. “You can’t get me in here. And I’m not leaving until you learn how to behave—”

The Beast suddenly headbutted the cage and Felix lost his grip in that instant. He slipped right down the base of the cage and opened his eyes to the coolness of the water only to catch the shark slipping away. It was swimming back around the pool, all along the edge, making a full circle—Felix choked on his own breath from the sudden realization.

He immediately latched onto the sides of the cage and scrambled back up into the surface, watching desperately as the large fin cut through the water and back over in a sweep. The creature rushed over in a great torrent and just as the shark lifted his head up for another violent attack, Felix let go of his hands and slipped through the holes in the front of the cage.

The shark struck it and the cage nearly rattled off its hinges. Felix slipped forward, looping his hands into the shark-man’s soft golden hair. His fingers coiled right into the scalp and pulled the creature forward with all of his strength. The shark’s astonished face hit the metal wiring as Felix propped his feet against the cage to keep him still, even as he began to thrash and wiggle.

He held on for dear life, held on out of fear for losing control over the first creature to make him this vulnerable in a long time and held on out of spite. Nothing but absolute frustration fueled his strength and even as the shark-man growled and bared his teeth, Felix held his grip tightly.

Then one of them gave in. The Beast’s efforts grew weaker and weaker until he went limp and floated in the water. He stared at Felix, unwaveringly and livid. The man leaned his head and bumped foreheads with the creature, glaring right into his blue eye—flushed over and ebbing with shadows and mist. They both breathed out, synchronized by their own efforts to spite each other, and Felix growled.

“Not so fast, _Beast_. You’re not pushing me down so easy—I’ve dealt with your ilk before,” He stared lowly. “And I’m not leaving anytime soon. I know you killed my co-workers but you won’t kill me. I _refuse_.”

The shark-man breathed hotly in Felix’s face, white teeth grinning upward to showcase their sharpness up close. His gaze swirled with heat and it almost seemed like he was drugged and unseeing. There was a moment, a single moment, where the creature’s expression wavered and the ferocity faded away to weariness.

Felix watched him a bit, watching the resigned submissiveness to wash over the creature’s strangely handsome face. Then he allowed his fingers to slip away from the Beast’s golden locks and he slowly pulled back. Satisfaction and victory filled him up like sweet nectar and the trainer almost felt like smiling over his slow success of this session.

The Beast was succumbing to him—ease would come soon and Felix would be done with it all. Done with him once and for all.

Suddenly, the Beast lunged forward with a growl within that split second of release and grabbed Felix’s hands back. The trainer gave a yelp as he was violently pulled right into the cage, his face hitting the thick metal frame. He opened his mouth and something else than water was shoved down his throat. Something hot and sticky.

Felix’s eyes widened.

He couldn’t breathe and could taste nothing but the disgustingly slimy and raw taste of mackerel, and the sharpened iron of dagger-like teeth pricking his lips red.

The shark-man, the Beast, was kissing him. Right on the lips and slipping his long tongue into his mouth. Nothing made sense. It was all so irrational. And yet a bizarre arousal flushed through Felix hotly like a sudden fever. His eyes fluttered with the loss of his senses and gave himself up into the kiss, opening his mouth with a soft whimper.

They stayed there for a minute as the shark’s claws left bleeding marks down the side of Felix’s arms; the trainer winced from the wet sensation and summoned the strength to shove the creature away; he scrambled back against the cage and gasped out desperately.

The shark, on the other hand, stared darkly at the trainer, licking the blood from his hands and grinned menacingly. Lust settled deep in his blue iris and his body shivered with hot delight—once a predator tasted blood, it wanted more and more until there was nothing left but bones. The Beast’s eye went dark and he hovered over the caged trainer, possessed and mad.

Felix’s cheeks flushed hot and he couldn’t talk. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. It was all irrationality and he wondered if this was merely a fever dream and he was still back at his apartment. When the shark slowly rattled the cage, the miracle of language returned back to Felix. He blinked rapidly at the sight before him, wiped his mouth of that _disgusting_ fish taste, and collapsed against the back of the cage.

His heart was absolutely thrashing.

“I don’t understand you. Do you want to eat me or fuck me?” He gasped out, red faced and nervous.

The shark-man merely grinned before continuing to fight at the cage and Felix realized that the thing was not comprehending him. The beast was hungry, lusting after the taste of human blood, and whatever sense of logic it had before was thrown out of the door as it swam back and began to make another long, full circle around the pool.

Felix said nothing more for there was nothing else to be said. He had lost once again. Without another word, the trainer quickly lifted himself out of the cage and fell back onto the floor. Just like a week ago, here he was again with nothing to show for it. His arms were bleeding out on the floor, his chest was still rising up and down with the search for stable breathing, and everything numbed.

The cage rattled violently with another headbutt before it fell off its hinges and descended below the pool’s surface. The shark’s fin was stationary, as if confused on where Felix went, and then that head peered up over the water in a frantic search.

Felix made no attempt to hide himself and watched as the Beast spotted him from the edge. Hunger slipped away to confusion, and they stared at each other rather longingly before Felix opened his lips and muttered incandescently.

“I hate you.”

The Beast closed his eyes, fatigued, and sunk deep below the surface, commencing the end of their trust-bond training.

___________________

No one was sure where the beast had come from.

On the official report, the location was the same as the others: the Fraldarius Coast, which connected to the greater Northern Sea. However, the merfolk from the Fraldarius Coast line all shared similar characteristics.

They were all coastal creatures, benefiting from the warmth coming in from the waters of Derdriu and merely stayed around the northern coastline for mating. Their pools and tanks were situated with specific heaters so they would be comfortable alongside commendations for mating season and birthing.

The shark-man, on the other hand, was different. Everyone knew he came from the different part of the coastline. No where near the semi-warm waters shared with the sunny capital but somewhere higher. Somewhere farther. Somewhere colder.

His pool was near freezing with the heater turned into a cooling system. The shark-man was also something of an enigma, bearing dark and gloomy colors, and scarred skin in contrast to the colorful patterns of the other merfolk.

He also despised the foods provided by feeding or rewards—small fish did not seem to quell him at all and the feeders were forced to spend money on larger prey in order to calm the beast, mainly large cuts of livestock meat. Venison was his favorite and he happily accepted the meal with vigor.

The Beast was a true mystery and Felix did not know how else to approach him. The last few weeks were something of a far away nightmare for him and he had nothing else up his sleeve. He tried his usual discipline but that only caused the shark-man to retaliate back in kind, usually by splashing water on him, attempting to bite or even kiss him, and would stare for long hours at the trainer as he pondered quietly near the edge.

It was a strange existence they shared. One not truly marked by pure antagonism but something so close to hostile confusion. Perhaps mockery. And absolutely curiosity for their own existence.

And for the first time in Felix’s career, he put down all the training equipment, stayed the hand that often struck and disciplined, and returned to the root of his intentions—why was he here in the very beginning.

For the next few days, Felix merely showed up at the pool and sat down along the edge with his literature from reports left by the last two trainers, the fatality reports from the three deaths, and his book on the Northern Sea life.

His companion, the Beast, watched quietly from the edge of the water. His single blue eye peering out as Felix quietly looked back and forth from everything. Sometimes, the creature would try to get the trainer’s attention by splashing him with water or even swimming in circles but Felix hardly paid any mind—he needed to ground himself and find a way to properly break this beast before it broke him.

“You’re the last of your kind, huh?” Felix muttered lowly. The shark-man stared longingly at him and seemed to edge closer. The trainer was not expecting him to reply back in kind, but the attention nonetheless sent a shiver down his spine.

His finger ran over the official report made by the marine biologist at the coastline lab, where most of the merfolk are classified and tested for any conditions before sent to the Exhibition Hall. The shark-man or specimen 1220 was the first shark ever caught off the Fraldarius Coast in nearly eleven years with the majority of the shiver having been killed off due to overfishing and the region’s rather controversial exotic food industry.

In fact, Felix remembered around the time he was twelve, the breaking news that flashed all over the screens—a great white shark-man had been caught in the upper part of the northern sea. It was the largest the people had seen in decades, totaling in nearly seventeen inches long.

He sat there, right in front of the television as the happy fishermen on the news patted the ripped, bloody stomach of the great shark. The camera panned out, revealing a long, muscular body hanging upside down from a hook—a long black tail and fins, and a human torso slathered in blood and guts.

The only thing distinguishable was the gold of its hair, matted all over a broken, dead face.

One of the fishermen bent over to use the dead shark-man’s teeth to open a beer bottle and Felix immediately turned off the TV. After that, he never touched seafood again and even grew to personally detest it all together.

Felix looked up from the report, stared closely at the curious blue eye and the head of blonde hair poking out from the water. It was strange, truly, how closely this beast resembled the great white those years ago on the shore. They could have belonged to the shiver, probably. Or perhaps they looked the same?

The trainer tilted his head. “You could not possibly be the last of your kind. Where is your shiver? Your mate?”

Bubbles foamed from where the Beast’s mouth was submerged and Felix could not tell if that was out of irritation or something else entirely. The man sighed into his open palm—why was he wasting his time, talking to a creature that clearly could not talk back to him. Some merfolk were able to speak, like dolphins and whales. Maybe even seahorses. But not sharks. Their language was all growls and snarls like a rabid dog.

“You must be lonely, huh? Not that sharks have any problem being lone hunters but, you know. It’s not good to keep you away from some interaction. Even we keep all the merfolk together in these big sprawling, habitat pools that go down under the ground for miles and miles. Of course, if we put you in there, then you would just fuck and eat everyone, wouldn’t you?”

No reply. No even a bubble.

“This is useless,” Felix groaned out. “I haven’t made any progress at all with you. Why are you so difficult with me, hm? You did fine with the first trainer save for the physical training. You did average with Ferdinand even if you two didn’t click. Why am I not even allowed in the water without risking my life? Or perhaps you’re still bloodthirsty from ripping that handler apart?”

The shark-man still didn’t reply. He just looked and listened as he had been doing for weeks now. Just looking and listening. And plotting. And waiting. Probably. Or he was simply watching and Felix was overthinking things again.

“At this point, I might just have to call it quits. If I can’t break you, then…” The trainer trailed off, his amber eyes circling up around his skill and into the blue skies above the pool.

Old shame was still there. So was guilt. And so was fear. In truth, Felix never recovered from the time the shark tried to explicitly drown him and even now, just being so close to such an unpredictable creature, the trainer was on edge.

He was scared.

Felix sighed and got up, the movement causing the shark to move forward a bit, as if to catch his attention. Instead, the trainer shook his head with weary eyes and left the pool without another word. As he went down that long stretch of the isolation ward, he could feel the shark-man’s eyes burn black holes into his cold back side.

Pleading. Begging. Almost whimpering.

But the shark and Felix did not share the same tongue. And all the trainer felt was hunger.

___________________

An entire month passed. And Felix’s willpower had long waned following so many near death experiences and close calls.

By the time the first week of the second month arrived, the trainer had stopped all efforts to tame the beast and simply babysitted him from the edge of the water with a dower expression.

After reading through everything, it was abundantly clear that the Exhibition Hall had made a bad catch at a clearly savage and wild animal, and there was nothing else that could be done. Any other training attempt from anyone else would result in a death and another assigned handler would just be feeding the shark more.

Three dead handlers, three failed trainers, and a tarnished reputation. There was nothing left for the Beast.

Felix understood this, everyone else understood this, and so the days began to slowly countdown to when the trainer’s time with the beast would end. When that fateful day would come, Felix would be forced to turn in his failure report, resulting in the shark-man’s immediate euthanization at the Marine Labs, which was a separate building from the Exhibition Hall a ways down. Strangely enough, this was a fate Felix did not want for the creature, even if he nearly lost his arm.

Even still, he did not know what else to do, how else he could possibly tame a beast that’s too wild for human containment. The trainer tried going back his regiment earlier in the week but found himself hitting the same wall. The shark-man was perfect at long distant parlor tricks but getting up close meant more hostility. It meant for teeth. More snarls and growls. But the strength wasn’t there anymore—both were just tired and did know how else to get situated to their relationship other than their usual tangle-with-death attempts.

And by the end of each day, Felix threw down a broken piece of equipment, collapsed right down on the floor, and thought back to his personal failures while the Beast watched from afar. And failures began to build higher and higher until the weight got too heavy for Felix to bear as the stalemate of the process gave way to settle permanently between them.

One day, he decided to skip out on training all together—the man simply wandered around the Exhibition Hall and watched the shows with a weary gaze. Watched his past successes perform in perfect synchronization with their handlers as his mind racing for solutions.

Every other trainer at the isolation had long felt Felix’s frustration, which was a rarity considering the man’s personal reputation, and whispered among themselves in frantic, hushed tones. Never before had Felix been this stumped by a merfolk before and the fact that he was openly taking hard was uneasy to watch. Especially from his fellow trainer, Leonie who encouraged the man to drop the shark entirely, even offering him the three-day-pass as a consolation reward.

It all fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, the Hall took advantage of the trainer’s absence to schedule a monthly check-in on the shark-man’s specialized heaters, which were set to keep the water cool. By the time Felix returned from his sullen walk around the Exhibition Hall, smelling of a weird mixture of fried dough and sea salt water, the mechanics were still at the heater.

The man plopped himself against the far wall and eyed the workers as he sipped on his soda. The shark was swimming around the pool as usual and it seemed like he was curious at all the people that had come into his section of the ward. It was here that Felix noticed how extremely messy the work area was from a multitude of tubes sprawled out along the ground; some were floating aimlessly in the water and Felix felt apprehension swell over him hotly.

The trainer walked over to the maintenance crew and stared at the strange inner workings of the heater attached to the pool.

“Oh, hello there,” one of the workers called out from over his shoulder. He sat back and wiped the grime from his gloves, peering up at Felix with a half-sleepy expression. “We don’t usually meet the trainer but we’re almost done. Just give us fifteen minutes for lunch and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“No worries. I just came over to ask if it’s okay to leave some of the wires in the water...you know, in case the Beast decides to chew on them or something,” Felix muttered, nodding over to all the parts floating around in the pool.

“Oh, it should be fine. We did that last time and the big guy didn’t give us any trouble. A tad bit curious but nothing to worry about.”

One of the workers came over and gave a sharp whistle, jamming his thumb over his shoulder with a small smile. “Alright, it’s lunch time! We’ll clean things right up for you when we get back, sir.”

Felix nodded silently and stepped back, allowing the rest of the crew to pass him out of the end section. He was not feeling very combatant today and had he been a bit more energetic, he would have asked them to take the tubes out. Once the room was completely empty, Felix sighed out and sat down right at the edge of the pool.

He watched as the water physically shivered in small waves of blue and white as the Beast perked at the sound of his voice. The shark fin from the end of the pool suddenly began to circle back to where Felix sat, drawn so instinctively like a magnet caught in another one’s pull.

It was strange—he actually liked watching the creature swim so eagerly to him, even if it was just to scare him off or intimidate him. It was like a dog responding to its owner coming home from a long day of work. Sometimes Felix imagined what it was like had they actually got along and the shark would just swim over to him in greeting rather than to eat him. But hypotheticals were for the foolish and dreamers, and Felix was neither.

The trainer waited patiently for his usual combatant to come greet him in their usual teeth-baring violence and bickering. The Beast made the slow travel over before dipping right below the loose cluster of elongated tubes from the heater, probably to slip under and out. The water went still after the ripples of the Beast’s tail slipped down dying away and Felix waited very quietly for the ascent.

A minute. Another minute. Three minutes.

Felix felt a sudden sickening feeling. It occurred to him for the first time that the Beast had never left him alone this long. Or perhaps this was a trick and he was waiting for him to lean over the water just to drag him down into a deadly trap. Or maybe the Beast would jump up from the water and scare him to death.

The trainer slowly got up from his spot and walked over towards the edge. Deep in the water, he could see the large shadow of the shark thrashing right in the depths. His movements were frantic and desperate and when Felix squinted his eyes, he saw something else: the tubes tangled all around the creature, twisting around his neck tightly into a deadly vice.

Without a second thought, Felix threw his drink to the side, tore his jacket off and dove right into the water. It struck his eyes like ice but he ignored it as he swam over to the Beast. As expected, the thing was completely caught in the thick forest of the tubes, which trapped him so completely that he could hardly move. He was choking, he was gasping out, and the harder he pulled and thrashed, the tighter the tubes coiled.

Felix immediately floated over and twisted his hands beneath the tubes, jerking them violently apart. However, he felt as his wrists were caught into the strange webbing and he felt himself equally trapped in its clutches. Felix grunted, snapped his arms up and down, and loosened the tight coil around the Beast ever so slowly, even as his own withheld breath scratched against his throat.

The hole was big enough for the Beast to finally slip through and the creature immediately swam away shaking violently from the convulsions of near death, and gasping out to breathe in the water. Felix tried to pull his own arms out but it felt the tubing constrict tightly around his wrists and tugged him forward.

Felix’s heart was pounding. He shook his head back and forth and felt as his breath spilled out of his lips and his chest constricted hard and tight. The water had coated his eyes until the contacts lost to the invading pressure and went blue-white with the colors smudging across his vision. And the trainer slowly succumbed to the growing weakness that crawled from his legs to his arms.

Felix’s eyes fluttered shut and he drifted as the water slowly filled his lungs. There were many ways he pictured his death—probably between the jaws of the shark he so desperately tried to break, but from getting caught in the tight bindings of heating tubes, left behind by a team of mechanics who were more concerned with their federal right to a fifteen minute lunch than any safety regulations.

He would never learn whether vacations at the Fraldarius Coast were as nice as Leonie made it out to be or whether he was ever going to find a life beyond disciplining captured merfolk. He would never know the joys to returning to academic study of marine life rather than contribute to the exploitation of them.

His life was nothing but terrible hypocrisy and he had nothing to show for it but a watery grave.

But before Felix could allow himself to slip quietly into that darkness, he felt something strong push against him. The force alone yanked him free and the trainer was forcibly thrown out of the pool and right onto the floor. Everything was happening so fast, he was sprawling around in the chaos, and the only thing he could do was violently cough up the salty water until his chest heaved painfully—empty and dry.

Felix tasted the sweet nectar of air, taking in so much that he fell on his back and swallowed it up wholly. He was a newborn child, birthed from the water housed straight from his own region’s icy coast, and he was left to lie naked right on the cold earth.

Ever so slowly, Felix refocused his dazed look over to the shark. The Beast, too, seemed shaken from his near death and shared with Felix an equally understandable look of loss. Of relief. And, most importantly, of clarity. Confusion and delusion could no longer cloud them any further—just, for the first time in a long time, absolute clarity.

They saw each other.

Felix gasped out weakly before speaking in the softest tone that ever left his lips.

“I guess...this makes us even...Beast.”

The shark-man blinked very slowly; one empty eye socket, one glowing blue eye—the storm was strangely absent and Felix never knew how bright the azure of the creature’s pupils were. Finally, the creature swam up right to the edge and propped his arms on top as he stared right at Felix’s exhausted form.

After a second, the creature opened its mouth and made a most unusual sound. A most familiar sound that rang true in Felix’s ear—human speech.

“Dimitri.”

“Dimitri?” Felix gasped out. No ‘ _you can talk?!_ ’ or ‘ _how long has it been since you could talk?_ ’ or ‘ _am I dead and this is a dream?_ ’. Just repeating back like a confused parrot in an attempt to fully capture the language proper.

The Beast nodded rather excitedly. He pointed to himself, in all of his out worldly handsomeness and stark bestial features lined in a powerful, scarred body.

“Dimitri.”

He then pointed to the collapsed man.

“F-e-l-i-x,” the shark sounded out on the tip of his purple tongue like a foreign delicacy he wanted to properly settle in his mouth. He then hummed softly, bobbing his head back and forth in agreement with the pronunciation before waiting patiently.

Felix gawked rather foolishly and closed his mouth. “Dimitri. Okay. Your name is Dimitri.”

“And you are Felix.”

“Yes, I am Felix.”

He let the silence settle between them, letting it linger and steep in the salty air. It blanketed the pool, made the soft patterns of water blend into the background, and slowly brought a sense of normalcy again. At least, a new one marked by the torn barriers of language and the potential for understanding.

Finally, the shark-man—the Beast—Dimitri spoke.

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

“Not sure. Are you going to eat me?”

“No…”

Felix closed his eyes to the afternoon light that flooded through from the open ceiling and sighed, hiding a small smile of relief.

“Okay, I’ll come back. But you have to behave or else they’ll cut you up like sushi and serve you to rich bastards at the capital.”

Dimitri looked off to the side and nodded shortly. There was a warmth to his face that was never there before, something Felix could not possibly reach from where he laid, but it was flushed and it was immensely human.

And then without another word, Dimitri the Beast sunk below the water and Felix was left to deal with the quiet thumping of his heart.


	2. The Lovers

As it turned out, simply understanding and talking to Dimitri did little to lessen the shark-man’s clear disdain for training. But, with the ability to speak, Felix finally was making common ground with the shark and felt his own pride return after a long hibernation.

Of course, they haven’t gotten into the physical training yet but simply being allowed to practice more personal tricks like back riding and hand feeding was progress nonetheless. That morning when Felix slipped into the ward, Dimitri had completely reverted himself—perhaps in the most unexpected ways.

The ferocity was still there, the hostility shimmering beneath cool skin, but the wall between languages broke through to something akin to understanding. When Felix looked upon the face of the beast that nearly took off his head several times, he saw not a feral monsters who snarled and bit at him at every chance in the wake but an enigma. A dangerously beautiful enigma who filled in all the cracks of Felix’s mind and seeped deep within until they were one.

And all he could think of was that voice—deep, guttural voice that echoed pleasantly between white, killer teeth. Smiling cruel and murmuring words like a siren’s call, so deceptively alluring that the trainer could not help but be drawn to his side.

“Why did you hide the fact that you could talk all this time?” Felix asked once he took his usual place right at the edge of the pool after a long session. This morning, he tried exceedingly hard to keep his curiosity away, reminding himself that Dimitri was supposed to be tamed, not befriended. And yet, the shark did nothing but chatter throughout all of the trainer—mostly on how good it was for him to talk again.

Dimitri swam over eagerly and greeted his trainer by propping his muscular arms out and stared at him with a solemn expression, marked by usual intense curiosity for the man. It was bizarre, how quickly they went from nearly killing each other to simply having a poolside chat after a long day like old friends. Not Felix was complaining.

“Easy. I don’t trust humans,” Dimitri said simply.

“But you’re talking to me now.”

“You saved my life.”

Felix snorted derisively. “Yeah, after what? Twelve separate occasions of nearly losing my head.”

The shark narrowed his single blue eye, fiercely unapologetic. “You can’t blame me for being so angry. I thought you were like the rest of your people. Why do you think I am called ‘the last of my kind’?”

“I just thought they did that to make you sound extra special,” the dark-haired man confessed sheepishly.

Dimitri shook his head, suddenly grim. “No, but I wish. My entire family was hunted down when I was but a pup. I watched as my own father was snatched by one of those fishing nets and hauled away to be made a spectacle. That’s why I refuse to speak to your kind.”

“I didn’t realize. I mean, I knew great whites were endangered but...” Felix felt himself frown deeply. He leaned forward until his face was mere inches away from the shark’s, which was resting on the edge of the pool. “So you...live alone most of your life.”

“Yes. I’ve always been alone. Even here I’m alone, surrounded by foolish humans who want me to jump ten feet in the air and roll over like a land mammal,” Dimitri hissed out, his eye widening like a jewel of fury. His clawed hand scratched along the floor until there were long white marks around him and he peered past Felix’s stunned face. “That’s why you’re here right? Like the other two. To make sure I behave and won’t slaughter another stupid human who thinks I’ll bend to their whims.”

“You killed them, Dimitri. I can’t let that happen again,” Felix replied back in kind, never once blinking as he stared right into that glowing pupil.

“I refuse, Felix. I don’t want to be here. I know you certainly don’t want to be here—I saw the way you read that biology book of yours. Or how you always adjust my heater so I won’t overheat and stay cool. You appreciate my kind. And yet you aim to tame us like pets.”

“What else could I do? This Hall no longer serves in the name of research and I’m just stuck here with a shitty talent,” he muttered.

“I want to go home, Felix,” Dimitri bemoaned, his face falling apart and finally revealing the soft brokenness hiding behind a brutish exterior. He touched Felix’s arm in the gentlest manner and leaned forward as far as his torso allowed him out of the water. “Please, you’re not like the others. You care about me. You keep coming back and fighting even after I tried to kill you so many times. _Please_ let me go.”

“I’m...I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” Felix managed to mutter out.

He sincerely, for the longest time, wished that the exhibition hall would just let go of all the captured so the merfolk may return to sea. It crushed him everyday to know of his own failure and the limits of his power. But at the end of the day, what else could he do but complain to a group of board members who often looked the other way regarding their own failures?

Dimitri felt the raw pain come through from Felix, heard it clear through his voice like a church bell. He then nodded very slowly, strangely appreciative.

“Then...at least don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to be alone. Not here.”

“What do you mean? I’m always here, dealing with your disobedient ass,” Felix sneered ruefully.

Dimitri shook his head. “You always leave before nightfall. I hate being here at night. Alone.”

“You really want me to stay overnight? You have to be shitting me.”

“Don’t you want me to behave?” Dimitri whined out, peering at Felix with _that_ expression of all expressions.

Despite being an enormous deadly sea predator with a death list attached to his name, Dimitri was hardly straightforward and showed signs of his cunning and manipulation. Of course, the fact that he actively talked now didn’t help in the slightest.

Felix sighed through his teeth as he rubbed circles in the sides of his head.

“If I stay overnight---”

“Overnights.”

“ _Overnights_ , with you. Would you continue to go through training without trying to kill me?”

“What's the next step in training again?” Dimitri asked, cocking his head to the side like a confused dog. “Weren’t the tricks enough? I did all of them on command, even if your rewards weren’t that fulfilling...”

“I have to get in the water with you so we—and anyone else in the future, can be safe around you. And you can feel safe around them,” Felix explained simply as he reached over and tapped Dimitri’s head.

The shark blinked. “I won’t hurt you anymore, Felix.”

“You can’t hurt them either.”

Here, Dimitri fell into a disquieting silence. The shark’s single eye moved to the side and Felix could see the conflict swell upon the coolness of his face. He fought to urge to lean in close and cement the idea that Dimitri wasn’t allowed to even touch the handlers a certain way unless they actively commanded him to, but that would mean trying to cram in the tragic future that Dimitri would have to be trapped in servitude until the day he died.

And even Felix was having a hard time even grasping with that idea itself.

“It would be a lie...if I said I didn’t mean to kill them. I did,” Dimitri started off coolly. His gaze was elsewhere, far away and beyond the small space they occupied. “I hated them. I hated humans. I hated anyone who walked and talked and laughed. I hated how they pushed me around and got mad when I wouldn’t…entertain the others. I hated them ever since I watched my own father disappear right before my eyes. So I killed them and I’m not sorry.”

“I’m not looking for an apology, Dimitri. Our kind has both done some terrible things,” Felix said, uncharacteristically soft. “But for my sake, you have to get along with them. You’ll have handlers deal with you from now on.”

“Can’t you be my handler?” Dimitri asked, hopeful.

“No. No, I can’t. I hate performing in front of crowds.”

When the shark fell quiet again, Felix patted the top of his head.

“Come on, Beast. I promise I will stay with you every night. You just have to work with me on this.”

Dimitri did not say a word. However from the way the shark-man gradually leaned his entire head to slot beneath Felix’s hand, chasing after a warmth he so dearly craved, the trainer understood keenly the silence acknowledgment.

___________________

Before Felix realized it, the passage of time slipped between their chatting bodies until the shadows grew long and oppressive and the light was all but extinguished save for the gentle moonlight illuminating the water to a soft glow. The air was much cooler and the entire Hall fell into a natural silence that calmed the soul and left those behind feeling somewhat sleepy

Felix had watched Dimitri swim around from the edge of the pool, quiet and observant. It was not uncommon for trainers to stay overnight if their assigned merfolk needed more hours of training or were sick and needed constant attendance. Everyone else just assumed that Felix was doubling down on his efforts on the shark and simply left him alone.

In truth, the pair had been talking since nightfall.

Dimitri revealed that his father was the King of the Northern Sea and that their shiver had been the largest, even larger than the shivers in the warmer waters of Derdriu and Enbarr. Their unique black skin and fins was the result of the colder waters and their larger size was due to the dangerous and oppressive environment they lived in. But despite this, they were extremely close together and behaved in the sort of familiar way that put most merfolk to shame.

They slept together in clusters of kelp, hunted together, taught their young, and even adopted any abandoned shark pups they found along the way. The former King was renown in the Northern seas to be an oddity—he adored humans. Spoken with them often by the coastline and was fluent in human speech, which was a rarity among sharks due to the language being reserved for other merfolk who had greater interactions with mankind.

Sharks tended to stay away from man. 

When Dimitri was a pup, he interacted so often with humans that he, like his father, perfected the language where as his other sharks merely knew enough to get by. He used to chatter and chatter in human speech until even his own father laughed and begged the young thing to stop lest the others would think him also sympathetic to humankind.

And even now, Felix believed it. Dimitri was slowly revealing himself, this fifteen feet long chatterbox who lost sense of time and kept returning to the bliss of the past without even a notion on how he looked. Dimitri looked...happy. Or at least, to Felix, as happy as he’s ever been.

“You know, my father loved your people. He had many friends among the locals who knew him in his youth—mostly older scientists and biologists he swam with in the day. He hoped that one day, we all could unite and be friends,” Dimitri said cheerfully as he leaned against the edge of the pool.

He suddenly stopped and the happiness quickly faded as it came like a sudden storm in spring. The shark went deadly still in the water before he drifted back and looked down.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Felix reminded him gently. He had taken his usual spot on the edge with a marine book sprawled across his lap. Dimitri was drifting further and further away from him, a shark’s way of brooding, and he sighed.

“I’m not sure if I’ll be okay with this idea...that I’ll be stuck here forever as a living display for people to gawk and point at,” he muttered darkly. "Father would not want this for me..." 

“You won’t be. It’s not in your nature,” Felix said honestly.

“I saw some of the merfolk on my way here. Mostly pretty coastal fish. They were scared of their minds, kept asking about their children, their mates.” Dimitri shook his head with a deep frown. “They have someone waiting for them. They have a home. They need to go back. But me? I’m always alone. I don’t mind if I stay here and the others can be freed but...that’s not what your kind does, do they?”

“They release some of the older merfolk once they become obsolete but the younger ones, especially the babies born in captivity, have to stay here. We have special trainers for the young once they come of proper age.”

“Makes sense—they wouldn’t know how to survive in that cruel world…”

“And, the more dangerous, exotic creatures like you, they have special protocols in case you step out of line. And that protocol is---”

“Death, right?” Dimitri smiled sadly at Felix, eyes drawn over softly in the moonlight. The words of a tragic revelation slipping through his sharp teeth like a low prayer, just audible enough for him and Felix to hear—a worshiper and his God.

“You have one chance left, Dimitri,” Felix muttered gently. “If you kill another, they will put you down.”

“Am I expected to live in this prison so happily? I might as well be dead...”

Felix stared at Dimitri for the longest time. He was not the right person to turn to in regards to such things like emotions and comfort. He was not a comforting person nor was he so open with his emotions aside from anger. But he felt things. Felt this intensely and wholly. And he hated how overwhelmed he got sometimes, so rattled and thrown off his usual disposition that he needed the solitude to simply sort it out.

But this time, it was oddly simple.

Without another word, Felix stood up from the edge. Dimitri was not paying attention; the shark was drifting on his back, head down and arms crossed over his muscular chest in a deep and solemn ponder. He seemed so inaccessible and unreachable, wading further until Felix was sure he could no longer reach him, even if he begged. Once the creature was a bit further away, the man slowly took off his jacket and shoes.

Earlier in the day, Felix had changed out of his wetsuit into normal clothes once he figured he wasn’t going back into the water. And in a way, that was still true—he hated after swims with a burning fury simply because of the inconvenience of readjusting his body back to the chilliness of Dimitri’s pool.

And in a way, that was still very true; he just wanted to sit right against the edge and submerge his feet and knees, hopeful that this would make Dimitri more comfortable with his active presence in the water before they began physical training.

Felix took off his shirt and rolled up his pants. He slowly dipped his feet into the icy black water—which pricked at his skin with the fury of a thousand knives. The trainer shivered with a small, hitching noise from his throat as his lower legs were now left dangling in the water freely. The small ripples waded across the entire pool until it kissed the unassuming form of the shark; he blinked from his dark dream and lifted his head up to see Felix sitting right on the ledge.

Almost immediately, the shark flipped over and began to swim over towards Felix. The familiar sight of the shark’s torn fin immobilized the trainer and his heart began to pound with the surge of dark and paralyzing trauma.

The near-drowning. The cage. All sharp force of white teeth nearly inches away from his face. And the sight of blood dripping down from his many scars and bite marks.

In fact, Felix did not realize how truly bad or deep this newly founded phobia was right until he forgot to breathe and gawked at Dimitri with wide, shuddering eyes when the shark came up right against him. Dimitri’s clawed hands gently curled over Felix’s ankles in a protective lock as he looked up adoringly. But the trainer had begun to physical hyperventilate—shoulders shaking as his chest constricted tightly with soft pants leaving his lips.

Before Felix could register it, something hot rolled down from his burning gaze.

“Oh, Felix,” Dimitri murmured with half-lidded eyes of worship. “I’m so sorry.”

The shark reached up and wiped the hot trails of tears from the man’s flushed face. But he was still breathing harshly, on the verge of breaking down and falling into sheer panic right then and there. He felt as Dimitri pushed his entire chest against his legs, his one arm slowly wrapped around in a small vice as he nudged one side of his face against the man’s knee.

He peered up at Felix, and ever so slowly, the trainer felt his rushing blood slowed and his heart going very quiet. It all faded away, the sickness inside of him, until there was nothing left but the peace of absence.

“I’m so sorry,” Dimitri repeated, just soft enough for them alone. His blue eye were dark and sleepy, and he looked as though he wanted to cry too. “I...hurt you plenty. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I’ll be good for you.”

“You killed before,” Felix asked without malice.

“I just wanted to hurt as many as I could. The last two trainers didn’t even try with me, especially the one with red hair. He was scared of me. He wouldn’t even return to the cage after the first time I tried to pry it open. He just fed me and did parlor tricks from afar.” Dimitri blinked very slowly at Felix as a small, amused smile slit across his face. “But you kept coming back.”

Felix wanted to laugh but his heart was still slowly down from a violent and deadly race. “I’m persistent, you _beast_.”

Dimitri hummed and stared back at him. Up close, Felix could see how bright the blue of his eye was. Usually, from afar, it merely seemed like a stormy abyss that ate up everything and left nothing behind. But grief and anger consumed, only so momentarily, and what was left was something bluer than the waters of Derdriu. Bright and big and shining.

And in a strange way, Felix felt as though he had seen this sight somewhere before, but he was not sure where. He then braved himself, feeling rather foolishly impulsive by reaching over, and cupping the side of Dimitri’s left cheek.

The shark flinched from the warmth but didn’t move, so fascinated with whatever Felix had intended with him. Finally, after a minute of allowing his hand to sit there, on skin as wet and cold as the coast’s waves in the winter, Felix gently brushed his thumb over Dimitri’s blue eye, overwhelmingly curious.

“You know, I think you’re the second shark I met this close,” he muttered, entranced.

Dimitri made a pleasant sound as he leaned into the touch, eyelids fluttering with feverish intoxication. “Oh? Would this be back before the sharks of the coast were hunted down?”

Felix nodded with a small smile. “I was really young. Maybe ten? My brother took me out fishing out on the waters when I caught one on my line. It wasn’t really anything big—just a pup. Prettiest thing though, with these big blue eyes like gems. Kind of like yours. Even to this day I still remember how pretty they were. Don’t worry, we didn’t kill him, just threw the poor thing back into the water.”

Dimitri regarded Felix for a moment, emotionless. The intensity of his gaze was enough to make Felix squirm in the shark’s tight vice, and the trainer moved to slip away before Dimitri caught his wrist and gently tugged his arm back down. Dimitri wasn’t smiling and he moved with some deliberate urgency.

“Do you have a brother named Glenn?”

“Yes…” Felix tilted his head, suddenly scared. “W-Why?”

He knew genuine distress when he heard it and there was nothing but a sharp edge to Dimitri’s voice that spooked him. In fact, the shark hardly looked rational anymore with his more wilder features flared out as though he had just smelled blood in the water. His eyes were dilated with the dark of hunger flooding through, the mark of the thrill before the deadly chase. A predator. 

Felix’s heart raced, his breath choked in his mouth, and his blood sizzled violently. Something boiled dully at the pit of his stomach—sick, sick, _pleasure_ , and the man panicked. He tried to pull his arms away only to find that Dimitri had completely constricted him as the shark sized him up, shivering against the terrified trainer.

“Dimitri, I think I should go—”

“I knew there was something different about you,” the shark suddenly muttered and produced a razor sharp smile with all of his teeth showing. Felix was peering into the face of a hungry predator and there was nowhere for him to go. Dimitri laughed out, this inhuman, animalistic imitation of a laugh, and shook his head. “I knew it, I _knew_ it.”

“Please, I just need—”

Felix never got what he wanted to say out.

The last thing he heard was a deep snarl before Dimitri quickly dragged the petrified trainer down into the cold water and trapped him against his chest, in between a pair of strong arms coiled around his slender back. He trembled against Dimitri’s body and he desperately tried to push himself off only to feel the shark drifted away from the edge.

Felix was being carried away, further and further away from land and the only thing that was keeping him from slipping into the deep depths of water was the predatory creature whose powerful body he was trapped on top of. He could feel the madness flooding beneath the latter's skin, threatening to break out and swallow him _whole_. 

Felix looked around, confused out of his mind, before finally meeting Dimitri’s unwavering gaze—absolute mania burning in the eye of the storm. The shark regarded him in that instant, clearly pleased to have caught him in the intoxicating trajectory of his stare, and then the shark leaned in and kissed the trainer on the lips.

Felix’s eyes widened. His hands scrambled and tried to shove himself away but to no avail. And he could feel nothing but a terribly possessive and alluring heat draw him in. Soon Felix’s strength waned and he slowly relaxed against the shark’s floating body as though the contact alone was medicine.

Felix’s breath got caught at the base of his throat and he found himself letting a small moan as Dimitri’s eager tongue slipped in between his teeth. Deep, bottomless sounds vibrated between them, pleasant hums and moans slipping out as they parted their hungry mouths momentarily to catch each other’s hot breaths before joining back together in hot desperation.

Dark desire shivered like an electric spark between them and Felix gradually felt himself grow flushed against the larger body—his cock pressed wetly against Dimitri, twitching and red.

The shark’s clawed hands which were clasped tightly around his back slid down ever so slowly, past his hip bones and through the soaked waistband of his pants; sharp claws gently pressing itself into the soft crevice of the trainer’s ass and Felix lifted his head back to gasp—their saliva webbing between bruised lips. His walls were crumbling one by one and gradually, the old shame of his failure and fear of Dimitri dissipated to pure and animalistic _want_.

Felix scrambled for purchase against Dimitri’s chest as they floated in the middle of the pool and somehow, rationale managed to shine through when the trainer gasped out weakly:

“I-I don’t understand...”

Dimitri licked the excess saliva off his lips with a sharp smile. There was nothing but hunger behind his eye, a thirst he desperately needed to quench, and he leaned over to Felix’s ear to whisper in a laughing voice.

“You held me like this. So close to your breast. I could hear your heart. I felt the softness of your hair. Oh, I still remember your lips—you were so pretty that day in the boat.”

“Wait, that was—”

Impatience won and Dimitri went back to silencing the astonished trainer with another brutal kiss, nibbling his bottom lip softly and tasting every bit of him like a dehydrated beast. Felix lacked the energy to think properly and allowed himself to succumb fully to the shark’s will. They kissed messily, moaning shamelessly as the sound of their wet mouths echoed across the empty ward.

Meanwhile, Felix’s erection pressed painfully against Dimitri’s body, precum already drizzling out and staining his soaked clothes. His cock was aching and all he wanted to do was to be taken and impaled by a creature that tried to eat him a few weeks ago.

He needed the shark-man’s length inside him, driving into his slender body until hot pleasure filled his stomach and swelled with heat. The thought alone of being trapped by the giant predator in the water and fucked and filled with cum until he could no longer move or speak rendered him mute.

How terrible regression of such shameless desire was.

Dimitri’s slimy fingers pressed deep into Felix’s ass, just right against the rim of the man’s hole. The shark chuckled in the brief moments they pulled apart and began to sink his digits inside. The trainer’s eyes bulged from the pressure spreading his walls apart and he made the sweetest sound, head thrown back in a beautiful arch against Dimitri’s body. The shark smiled and pressed small nibbles all around the soft skin of Felix's exposed neck. 

“I wanted you the day I saw you. I wanted to eat you up, even the bones, so nothing could exist. We could become one, you and I. Oh goddess, I _wanted_ you, Felix,” Dimitri murmured hotly as he licked the saltiness from the man’s flushed cheeks.

“Eat me then. Take me now. Make me whole, you beast,” Felix begged weakly; his cock strained and he began to push his perky ass against Dimitri’s fingers as they plunged deeper and deeper.

“Oh, I will. I will take what has been denied to me for so long.” Dimitri pulled his wet fingers out ever so slightly before jamming in, listening to the man’s intoxicatingly sweet gasps and hot whimpers in his ear.

Felix had long descended into a desperate state, perhaps fueled by his own secret desire for the handsome shark-man. He rubbed his entire head in the nape of Dimitri’s neck, trying to hide the tears—the shark smelled and tasted like sea salt, and it alone nearly made Felix cum.

Then, something hard suddenly sprang freed from right below the trainer’s reddened ass and it lightly smacked his balls, rubbing against them like a rod. Felix blinked rapidly, still quivering from Dimitri’s fingers fucking him roughly, and he weakly looked over his shoulder and down his body.

There, right between his ass and pointed upward to the night sky was two enormously erect cocks, which sprang from the hidden flaps of the shark’s body—naturally oily in the moonlight, and twitching violently with beads of precum. The sight of them alone watered Felix’s mouth and he felt himself rubbed his ass cheeks against the shark’s first cock.

“I never heard of humans and sharks mating before,” he managed to mutter. Dimitri spread his fingers apart and Felix moaned, his eyelids fluttering shut over pupils. Heat flushed deep within and the trainer jerked his hips upward, rubbing his trapped length in between the crack of Dimitri’s tight abs.

“Sailors fucked mermaids all the time. It’s not so uncommon,” Dimitri said with a dark laugh.

He took in Felix’s own scent, grinning sharply against the pale skin as his fingers finally pulled out, leaving nothing but an abused, gaping hole. His hand slipped out of Felix’s pants, just stopping right at the soaked waistband—and ripped the fabric entirely off the man’s shaking thighs. Felix quivered as his legs were freed to the water and watched as his torn pants and boxers were left to float away nonchalantly.

Suddenly, the body beneath him shifted and Felix was pushed against the edge of the pool from his back when Dimitri made the full drift. Breathing heavily with an eye glazed over with storms, the shark-man reached over and cut the trainer’s hair tie with a single finger, allowing dark locks to spill over into the water like streams of black ink.

Felix blushed from the intimacy of the action alone and merely whimpered when he was lifted slightly up, Dimitri’s enormous slimy length angled right over his ass. It was torturous, how the shark teased the man by pressing ever so lightly and rolled his hips around with a playful smirk.

Dimitri’s dark eye took in the sweet sight of Felix’s face—how he scrambled against the edge with tears in his eyes and black hair clasped over his beautiful, white back. And Felix knew how he looked at the moment but did not care—he couldn’t care because the only thing that mattered was how Dimitri’s hard and twitching cock was twitching against his asshole.

“Do you want it, _beloved_?” Dimitri asked sweetly and nibbled the trainer’s ear lobe. “Do you want to be my mate? Become mine?”

“Yes, yes!” Felix declared with a shaky, broken laugh. “I’ll be your mate! I’ll even be your meal! You can eat me! You can chew me up and swallow me down until I’m yours! Oh goddess, Dimitri, make me yours!” He begged as tears trailed hotly down his eyes and into the water.

“As you wish.”

Dimitri gave one last wicked, animalistic smile and snapped his hips. Felix’s tight, slick walls fluttered around the large cock and the shark began to drive himself in without warning, pushing Felix’s chest against the edge of the pool. The heat _soared_ , sending violent quakes all across the smaller body.

Felix cried out beneath him; he had both of his hands clenched on either side of the pool’s edge and held on for dear life. Dimitri took his hands and latched them right under Felix’s soft thighs, lifting him up higher and kissing the man’s wonderfully marbled shoulder blades.

Then, the shark began to thrust roughly inside of the trainer. He was fucking him hard and quick without any signs of stopping. He was pushing him against the edge of the pool, the same edge the protected Felix for so long from the shark’s ravenous hunger, and the trainer was _so close_ to scrambling back onto land—but Dimitri held him still, possessive and mad, and fucked him until the small noises became open moans and cries which echoed across the ward.

Against the ledge where his erect cock bounced in between the wall and his stomach, Felix sobbed out brokenly, so torn from over stimulation and pleasure that he came violently in the water. The ripples made from Dimitri’s extreme fucking turned white and murky and there was nothing Felix could do but let the shark push into him.

The Beast’s claws pieced through the skin of Felix’s thighs and bits of blood slipped into the water. The heavy scent alone sent Dimitri into a sickly mania and the shark began to violently bred his trainer as though he were a brooding mare, made only his cock.

Felix had begun to rock his ass back down and met with the shark’s brutal movements, taking in that large cock as much as possible. But there was too much—too large for him to properly bear, and Felix began to panic with an open sob as he noticed the quickened bulge stabbing his lower stomach.

Dimitri’s fingers clenched with tension and he suddenly jack hammered into the smaller man with water splashing everywhere. Felix threw his head back against Dimitri’s shoulder with a soundless cry; his eyes were rolled at the back of his head and his tongue hung flat outside of his mouth, saliva dripping down his chin.

He came in the water again but Dimitri kept pounding him hard and fast. Water was splashing all over the place and the pair was soaked wet with a mix of Felix’s thick cum.

“D-Dima, I can’t, I can’t— _aghh_!” the trainer cried out when his entire body was jerked up from the shark’s movements.

“You’re so beautiful. By the goddess, you’re so beautiful,” Dimitri muttered like a sacred mantra as he pressed kisses to Felix’s cheek and rubbed against him sweetly.

He rolled his hips deep inside Felix before rocking upward. The trainer’s gaze turned white and he screamed, the sweet glorious sound of Dimitri’s name— _there it is_. The shark chuckled deeply and focused all of his power and stamina at that soft spot that made Felix sing so sweetly. It became so much that the violent waters went white again with the trainer’s fourth violent orgasm, which raked through his entire body in _waves_.

But the shark did not stop. He fucked the poor trainer harshly, pushing his hips in and out with the desperate chase of absolute pleasure. And Felix had long lost his mind; he lulled his head against Dimitri’s shoulder and went limp as soft tears slowly spilled out of dull, unconscious eyes. His entire body went slack and it was just the shark’s penetrating cock alone that kept him from slipping in the water.

Seeing Felix nearly passed out against his chest, Dimitri’s pleasure erupted to a boiling point and he snapped his hips in all the way—the tip of the cock slightly bulging against the trainer’s stomach as he exploded deep into Felix’s guts, drowning them white.

There was so much of it that it spilled out in between the trainer’s ass and Dimitri’s cock, coating the entire water around them with a thick murkiness. The shark’s mind lost its weak grip on its humanity and all he could think of was the sweet smell of Felix’s blood and flesh while his hips stuttered from the violent orgasm.

Finally, it all stopped with the tinkling after feeling of exhaustion falling upon the creature. But as for Felix, the poor trainer was long gone—his soft cock floating in the soiled water as drool dripped down his slightly agape mouth. Somehow, he managed to feel the adoring kisses of Dimitri’s lips on the side of his head, murmuring sweet confessions of love and devotion.

His white eyes fluttered shut with sleep and Felix slipped under, allowing the tender arms of his bestial lover to take him down gently into that welcoming darkness.

___________________

How was Felix supposed to call _this_?

How would most call _this_?

A strange arrangement? A sick compromise? Maybe a disturbing fetish? A clear unbalance of a power dynamic. Either way, how many trainers at the Exhibition Hall could Felix say was fucking the merfolk under their care. Maybe Ferdinand—he was enchanted by some of the pretty mermaids he worked with in the past, though Felix was sure the man never got around to laying with one of them.

He could not say the same for himself.

Felix tried to return back to normal life, citing the sex to be a one time, impulse thing. By Monday morning, he ordered maintenance to remove the cage and prepared himself for the physical training period of the last month.

This was usually the most toughest part for Felix personally as he never truly connected to any of the merfolk under his care. While they adjusted to his presence in the water, it was primarily out of a fear of the trainer, which later transferred to the handler.

Fear was a convenient leash for most merfolk, but it didn’t fit around Dimitri’s neck. Something else did—something much more _unsavory_ and _unprofessional_ for Felix’s sake. Ever since that night, he blocked all thoughts and memories that surfaced, along with the clear way Dimitri’s voice rang out in that groggy morning on his excitement over the confines of their new ‘relationship’.

There was no relationship, Felix would finish his training with Dimitri, and whatever occurred that night would simply be a shameful footnote in the trainer’s small and simple life. So came Monday morning once the cage was removed and Felix was ready to return to something of normalcy save for the usual attempts to drown and eat him.

The trainer donned his wetsuit, making sure it snapped over his neck and arms, still marked from a violent love making, and strolled over to the pool. The cage was gone—something that both Ferdinand and Leonie thought was a bad idea on Felix’s part, but the trainer had long committed himself to doing this properly.

Had only he known better.

Felix slipped into the water, completely unguarded, for the first time in weeks. It was still so early in the morning and Dimitri was nowhere to be found, probably asleep at the bottom of the pool. The trainer adjusted himself to the stark coldness, allowing it to seep into his suit and skin, and then he gave a sharp wake-up whistle.

It echoed across the water like a stepping stone and danced across the semi-empty ward. Then silence with the mere chirps of birds flying overhead. Nothing happened and Felix was met with the irritable sight of sheer absence.

Where in the world was the Beast?

“Dimitri, are you awake?” He called out loudly, his sunset eyes burning along the stillness of the water. The trainer even gave a light slap against the surface, sending tiny ripples across the water, and he spun around. “Come on, we’re burning daylight hours, right now. We need to start on the physical training, remember?”

Suddenly, Felix felt something latch onto his ankles. But the trainer had no chance to react as the force dragged him underwater quickly; water entered his open mouth and Felix’s eyes strained itself to the growing panic in his heart. All he saw was blue, blue, blue as his own breath throbbed in his throat, and before the trainer could scramble for the surface, something _big_ pressed up against him and took in his lips hungrily.

An eager tongue forced itself into his astonished mouth and all Felix could taste was a mixture of mackerel blood and guts. There’s a vibration of a deep, guttural moan humming pleasantly against Felix’s lips and something latched around his center, keeping him centered and still. Having no other choice, the trainer sucked in the breath that was given to him and kept his hands pressed tightly on what he could only register as an incredibly broad pair of shoulders.

It was too early in the morning for Felix to deal with Dimitri’s antics but there was nothing more he could do. The shark is lapping at him as though he were a good meal long denied to him with a bestial hunger bordering on the instinctual aggression to tear apart and kill. He’s swallowing up Felix so wholly that even in the water, the trainer was sure that not a drop of saliva slipped away from him.

Finally, Felix shoved Dimitri away and swam up to the surface. He breathed in the crisp air, gasping wildly as he clutched to the side of the pool. Meanwhile, the shark surfaced with him and watched the trainer with a mischievous smile slit across his handsome face—his eye twinkling brightly.

Felix glared at him from his coughing fit.

“You fucking _beast_! I fucking hate you!”

“I love you, Felix.”

“Fuck you!”

Dimitri swam over and slipped his hands on Felix’s hips, squeezing playfully as he tugged the hacking trainer closer to him. The shark nuzzled his face onto Felix's head, even as the trainer pounded his fists into his chest. Felix managed to pull away and laid down a red hot gaze on the creature, wiping the remaining saliva from his bruised lips.

“Dimitri, if you’re done fooling around, we need to get started on physical training.”

“Okay.”

The shark tugged Felix back and nibbled the soft skin of his neck. The trainer pushed him back, exasperated.

“No, not like that! We need to get you situated to have a human in the water so you and the handler can perform more physical moves together—remember the back riding trick? There are more things where that came from…”

“But I’m already used to your presence.”

“Good, then we can just learn the moves then.”

“I won’t do them,” Dimitri said plainly and Felix groaned into his hands.

“You have to be shitting me—we’re so close, Dimitri. What do you want? More fish? Venison? What?”

“You.”

Felix’s heart throbbed but he refused to let this show on his face. He glowered at the shark, at how suddenly solemn his face was or how straightforward his declaration rang true and clear. There was hardly any room for discussion in Dimitri’s voice, nothing but the edging bordering on mania. The trainer could not help but give out a loud sigh as the shark pulled him back.

“If I...humor you, will you behave and learn,” Felix asked, swallowing down his pride.

Dimitri made a pleasant humming sound against the nape of his neck, a smile curling against the skin. “It’s not humoring me when you want it too, beloved.”

“Dimitri.”

“But yes, I will comply. I will learn and be sweet.”

“Even to your handler when the time comes?”

Dimitri’s face slightly fell and his eye twitched. Irritation flooded through the shark’s body in physical waves and Felix could see how his muscular chest gradually constricted, a dark thought being swallowed down right before him. And then, ever so slowly, Dimitri nodded in tight agreement.

Felix exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes.

This was going to be a long month.

___________________

To Felix’s surprise, training went rather swimmingly and faster than he had expected. Dimitri had fallen so quickly into such a subservient role that the trainer wondered if someone had switched his shark for another. One which was more quieter and submissive.

Dimitri obeyed upon command and performed each new trick with a surprising exertion of accuracy and dexterity, despite never having performed anything to this sort before. And the entire time while Felix was being picked up and flung in various directions, or dragged underwater before being thrown back up and landing on the shark’s back, he never once sustained an injury.

His past merfolk were usually slow to adapt to physical training. One too many times, Felix was thrown up only to fall onto the merfolk who failed to catch him properly or the times he slipped off the back of one when they moved too fast. Dimitri, on the other hand, was perfect.

He and Felix moved as though they were two ribbons, tying into itself into a perfect knot of harmony. Whenever the trainer called on the shark to pick him up and throw him over one of the overhanging hoops, Dimitri performed beautifully and caught Felix on the other hand—his slender body slotted perfectly in Dimitri’s strong arms.

And as Felix promised, Dimitri was rewarded for his efforts.

His ‘reward’ was always reserved at night when the pair was alone and the trainer was out of his work clothes. Of course, not that it mattered for Dimitri always made sure Felix’s clothes were torn off regardless. The shark swam over with a dark grin and gently pushed himself against the shivering man sitting off the ledge, spreading his white thighs apart, and fucking Felix’s eager hole with his fingers.

Felix could not restrain the shameful noises that emitted from his throat, crying out and gasping with tears as Dimitri watched him closely. The shark was drawing this out for as long as he could, his fingers slow and concise as he plunged them deeper up and curling up against the man’s prostate. Pleasure moved through Felix like chills and he threw his head back, shivering with curled toes.

It was nothing but an absolute show for Dimitri, how the trainer’s proud and sneering expression immediately collapsed to a panting, broken mess—a mere broodmare meant to be held down and bred again and again. He sobbed brokenly, tears trailing down his beautiful face as his hair clung to the sweat on his cheeks and chest.

Once the shark took out his fingers, often licking the slick produced from Felix’s abused prostate with a smile, he angled himself just between the trainer panted wildly and his weary eyes strained to catch the large, twitching cock of his inhuman lover, already wet with beads of heavy precum sliding down the veiny length.

“Please, _please_ just put it in me, already!” Felix begged, even going far as to reach down and touch the shark’s hardened cock with the tips of his fingers, rolling it around as he listened to the deep growl coming from the beast.

The difference between them was absolutely _terrifying_. The sight of Dimitri’s twin cocks stabbing against Felix’s stomach was too much for him to even think about without getting excited again. And Dimitri was _huge_ , not just in length but the shark himself was so broad and muscular up close that Felix felt trapped on all sides. The beast’s sharp teeth were gently pricking along the side of the man’s neck, breathing hotly, as his hand went to stroke Felix’s weeping cock.

The shark’s first length pushed against the pink rim of his ass, slowly edging in as it swallowed him eagerly. And an inch at a time—spreading tight walls apart and marked by the trainer’s breathy squeals until Dimitri settled nicely inside him. He pressed overly tender kisses all along the tear-stricken face and right down to the heaving chest, sucking on a nipple as he began to move inside with the sounds of wondrous gasps.

After that, it was just hard and brutal fucking—the ward echoing with the sound of water splashing and wet skin slapping against skin with a mixture of grunts, growls, and heedless begging descending upon mind shot laughter and moans.

By the time Felix painted both of their bodies with his fifth orgasm for the night, Dimitri detached himself from that abused body with globs of thick white cum dripping down from that gaping, red hole.

The trainer would collapse on the ledge, shaking violently before settling completely with an involuntary sigh; Dimitri would stare for a few minutes at his handiwork, pressing cum back into the trainer’s asshole with a soft smile, before kissing the insides of his thighs—scratched up and bleeding from where Dimitri gripped him. The shark licked the blood clean, resisted the urge to eat Felix, and watched the man sleep throughout the night.

By morning, they would start back once again from professionalism in the day and pure degeneracy by night. Felix thought it was strange that he was able to maintain this crippling cycle, this absolute destructive deal he made with a water demon who killed three of his colleagues and tried to kill him a number of times last month.

Despite everything, Dimitri was sincerely soft and caring, revealing a truly attentive heart behind his intimidating appearance. He was nothing but sweet and caring, even as he trapped Felix against the wall, constantly overstimulated and weeping.

He always kisses the broken trainer on the cheek, wiping away his tears as Felix’s body twitched and shuddered around his thick length. Sometimes, the shark would talk about how pretty Felix was today while fucking him from behind and using the water to clean the remnants of their rough love.

There were nights where, after a particular bad training session where both were conflicting for various reasons—Felix often bickering with Dimitri on a certain trick or method—the shark stuffed the trainer completely with his thick cum and refused to pull out until the morning sun shined overhead. By then, Felix was too weak to train that day and had to head home to sleep off the heaviness in his stomach.

And then, there were the more peaceful nights where both were too weary for any lovemaking and merely relaxed in each other’s presence.

Felix usually laid down on the floor while reading on his reports, his head so close to the ledge that his long dark hair spilled into the water like ink; Dimitri liked to swim up close and touch it, so fascinated by the latter’s hair that he often let it spill between his fingers and watched it flutter in the water like a guppy’s delicate tail.

The shark-man was strange in this way, how he touched Felix as if he were studying how the human body works up close despite them sharing a similar torso. But the claws lingered, often around his hair, his scalp, and if Felix was in the water, those hands went down in other places that made the man close his eyes and shiver hotly. These reactions were nearly equal to the taste of blood for Dimitri or he could not get enough of them and chased after them feverishly.

Of course, the shark was never meant for land and the trainer was not built for water. Whenever Felix slept, he slept right off the ledge where he allowed his right arm to float freely in the water; Dimitri pressed his entire head beneath Felix’s limp palm and slept right next to him, substituting their own failed biology of each other’s separated habitats through compromise.

Then there were days where Felix could not stay the night at all. It was too unreasonable to assume he would stay every night after work—he had to go home, properly feed himself something else than vending machine food or leftovers from the employee break room, and actually wash himself with soap rather than a cold pool.

Naturally, these mornings were the worst for Dimitri was in such a childish tantrum from being left alone that he refused to listen to Felix at all—even going as far as to swim to the bottom of the pool and remained there until the trainer coaxed him back up by stripping off his wetsuit.

Apologies were mutual as such were the tenderness that followed. But these days were heading towards a bitter and frightful end, and they both knew it.


	3. Death

Felix didn’t realize that sharks could cry.

He has seen other merfolk cry before, usually if his training was too hard or if the poor creatures suddenly became sentimental and begged to go home. But sharks, his idea of them were skewed from two major events of his life: his first meeting with a baby shark in the boat who returned Felix’s kindness with a kiss and the second meeting with the grown up version of that same shark, who pushed him at the very bottom of the pool with the intent to watch him die.

The duality of those two images hardly convened anything regarding human sadness but then again, Felix should have known better. It was the end of the month, his contract was up, and the completed dialysis of the training was approved, both signed by the board members and, reluctantly, Felix himself.

His dialysis of every training always went through, even with the tougher merfolk.

And come last Monday, Dimitri was in no mood to train or to mess around; the shark rested his upper body on the ledge, his head lulled against his arms as a single dull and unfeeling eye stared back at Felix from afar. The trainer came over and sat down next to him on the ledge; he reached over and gently patted the top of Dimitri’s head, fingers running through golden locks, which shined under the sun.

But not a word was said. Not at all.

And then Dimitri’s shoulders began to shake and a small, nearly inaudible sound came from the shark’s throat. Felix’s fingers coiled into the scalp gently.

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Who.”

“My handler.”

Felix felt his heart drop but kept his voice leveled. Controlled. Someone had to be between the both of them. The fine line between grief and anger was nearly nonexistent but Felix still wanted it to be preserved because one of them here was not human. A beast was a beast through and through and he urged his lover to keep to his more rational instincts.

“You’re being silly,” Felix finally said and swallowed down his fear.

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him apart, limb by limb, and taste every bit of him until his heart beats at the pit of my stomach,” Dimitri declared coldly without any emotion, his voice hardly going up an octave.

“They’ll kill you, Dima.”

“I would rather be dead than apart from you.”

“I’ll still be here. I’ll visit you every day and—”

“No. That’s not happening.”

Felix arched a brow, feeling as the bile of his anger bubble at the base of his throat. “Why?”

Dimitri looked up and his one eye glistened. “They’re transferring me.”

And the line snapped. Felix’s hand went still in the shark’s hair as six different emotions raced through his mind, twisted his face, and stabbed at his heart. But the greatest one of all was ignorance—betrayal. And stirred in him, so bottomless and deep that Felix left like throwing up right then and there.

“ _They_ came to see me...when you went home. I behaved like you asked, like you taught me. They were impressed—wanted to do one show here with a famous handler coming in from…” Dimitri rolled his eye, trying to find the word. “Hrym. If all went well, I would...go with him back as their sea resort houses exotic and dangerous creatures.”

“No one told me,” Felix muttered mutely.

“Why would they? You’re just the trainer. Your job is done.”

“No. No, no, _no_.” The trainer stood up from the ledge and touched his head.

It was hot, shearing white across his vision like flashes of heat in the summer. His voice came out in a painful hiss and all strength left his body in waves. Felix couldn’t see anything and he couldn’t think. The only thing on his mind was control. He needed to keep Dimitri here where he could keep an eye on him, even as someone else would be handling the shark from now on. But Hrym—Hrym was thousands of miles away in the south.

Felix would never see him again.

“Felix…”

“ _Shut up_! I’m thinking.”

“I’ll kill him. I’ll show them how dangerous I am and I won’t mind dying if it means I won’t be separated from you,” Dimitri murmured, demure.

Felix resisted his hand but pointed at the shark instead, eyes glowing like a million suns burning in the sky. “Dimitri, shut the _fuck_ up and let me think, okay?!”

“Okay…”

Felix closed his eyes. Could he get a transfer? No, the Exhibition Hall would never approve of it—he was their best trainer and Dimitri, the killer of three turned obedient spectacle, was proof of it. Could he try and argue with the board members? But if they already settled on the handler from Hyrm coming here, this would mean that the sale already transferred through. What if he quit? What if he quit and tried to apply to be a trainer at sea resort in Hrym? They would take him, wouldn’t they? The famed Breaker of Beasts. But, even then, he and Dimitri would still be separated one way or another. Out of reach, but never out of mind.

But life was that? An illusion of something that could be greater.

“You can’t die, do you understand me?” Felix finally uttered and looked down at the shark. Dimitri seemed so small from where he laid, smaller than he had ever been before. “You have to live. You must live.”

“What are you planning?” Dimitri asked quietly.

“Getting you out of here.”

It was here that the shark perked up. He raised his head and stared at Felix, the glassy blue eye centered dead on him as the storm seemed to part from the center of the iris. All there was and ever was, clarity and worship of something beyond him.

“Listen to me. You will do the show. You will perform your heart out. The board members will be pleased and they’ll go ahead and sign off on your transfer. Whenever they transfer merfolk out of the Hall, usually to return them to the sea or send them off to the...labs for euthanization, they put them on these trucks out by the docking bay. Most likely, you’ll have your own truck since you’re going all the way to Hrym. If that’s the case, I will—”

“Let me stop you there, Felix.” Dimitri held his hand up and looked to the trainer sadly. “You’re not stealing the truck.”

“I’m stealing the truck,” the trainer continued as if the shark had never spoken up. “And then I’m driving you to the Fraldarius Coast and setting you free.”

“You’ll lose your job if they found out.”

“Fuck my job—I never wanted to break merfolk in the first place. I just wanted to study them.”

“Felix,” Dimitri said again and the crying pain in his voice was palpable, as raw as the first time Felix felt the creature’s teeth scrape against the skin of his exposed neck. The shark’s large tail swished in the water with unknown thoughts and feelings and then he closed his eyes. “You’re...really going to go through with this, aren’t you?”

“You’ll be free.”

“I’ll be alone again.”

“You really think I’m just going to dump you in the ocean and never look back? Please, I know better than that.” Felix knelt down on one knee in front of Dimitri, eyes grazed over with a passionate solemnness to him—and he cupped the shark’s broad jaw and tilted his head up until their eyes met.

There was a moment of silence, which Felix allowed to sink in, and then he smiled with promise. “I’m going to buy a house by the water, right on the edge of the Fraldarius Coast. So you and I can be together. And even if you have to go far, you will know where I am. Always.”

Dimitri physically went pale in Felix’s grip. “Are you serious?”

“Am I one to joke around, _beast_? Besides,” the trained lifted his head, sneering. “I hated my old place anyway. Might as well have a change in scenery.”

“Felix…”

“You just have to do your part and promise me you won’t hurt the handler. You’ll listen to him.”

The shark was crying again and he began to rub his face against Felix’s open palm, making the pale skin wet with salty tears. He was not a noisy crier for noisy criers had the privilege of letting it out openly nor was he a quiet crier for that would imply repression of such great intensity.

Dimitri was crying because this was a new outlet for him to exert his feelings rather than rage. This was all new and unknown to him that it, itself, hurt.

When the King of the Northern Seas died and was hung from a hook for people to snap pictures with and order pieces of his meat to eat in overly expensive sushi, did young Dimitri cry? Or did he raged and raged until there was nothing left but a body meant to tear apart and kill?

If the shark was not rage anymore, what was he now but a creature freed of its shackles?

“I’ll do good. I’ll do good. Just promise me that we will be together again,” the shark whined brokenly and sniffed.

“I promise,” Felix whispered in kind.

And he kissed Dimitri on the lips to seal their oath—hard and passionate enough until their blood intermingled and the shark began to thrash excitedly from the taste. An oath through blood, spit, and loving murmurs and gasps between two bodies becoming one.

And for a moment, just for a moment, they had completely forgotten themselves.

___________________

That night when Leonie took Felix out to the local bar after succeeding in his ‘breaking’ of the notorious beast, he shared it with his long time friend and former research partner on his master plan. A strange scheme to smuggle the shark out of the Hall and metaphorically, into a house on the coastline, away from the public eye. 

And, to Felix’s great surprise, the woman had not a word of protest. Perhaps it was the fact that she downed three glasses of whiskey already before Felix quietly revealed his intentions for Dimitri, but Leonie nodded very solemnly, immediately understanding.

“So you’re gonna go steal him away? Good on you,” she said with half-slurred words of encouragement and even reached over and patted his arm.

Felix arched his brow, curious. “You’re...not going to tell me to stop?”

“No, because you wouldn’t listen. And even then, it’s not like I completely oppose the idea.” Leonie peered down at her drink and swirled the liquid around with a funny smile. “It reminds me of my teenage years of protesting sea life abuse...and now I’m helping exert that terrible system.”

“Will you help me?”

“Help you sneak out your shark lover?”

Felix frowned as his cheeks burned against the stark paleness of his skin and his drunken partner began to snicker ruefully. She was always on the dot, even in her less than sober moments.

“Don’t think I know. I saw all the marks on your body in the morning and I know it’s not from the shark trying to bite at you again. Then again, I’m not the best trainer in the Hall so I suppose you have to adapt your methods somehow---”

“Leonie.”

“But, I knew. And I honestly, with this much work you’re putting into trying to set him free, I’m starting to think that you actually had feelings for the big guy.”

When Felix went silent, not so much out of shock, but more so out of a wordless acknowledgment. His own way of saying ‘I love him’ without ever moving his lips. And somehow, the drunken woman was able to read the air—albeit, one so heavy with stench and nighttime sadness. Leonie wiped her dull eyes and yawned out, nonchalant.

“What do you want me to do, Felix?”

“They’re going to transfer Dimitri after the show to Hrym. I’m planning on stealing the keys and hijacking the truck all together. Could you be my alibi in case something goes south?”

“You got it. As far as I know, you and I went for drinks after the show,” Leonie said with a half-smirk and a nonchalant wave. “But I got to warn you, Felix, be careful around that new handler coming in from Hrym.”

Felix edged forward, leaning in close. “Why?” 

“You haven’t heard of the Death Knight?”

“What a stupid name.”

“But a name nonetheless. And one that pretty much evokes exactly what is to be expected of him.” Leonie put down her glass, suddenly so solemn and sober. She stared right at the dark-haired man across the table, frowning with shadows cast all over her usually cheery face. It was here that Felix felt it, the absolute dread that radiated off the woman and soaked into the darkness of their little corner.

“Felix, the Death Knight is a famed handler in the business and for a single reason. He’s the one who handles the more dangerous creatures of the sea—orcas, barracuda, sharks, if it has teeth and bites with a fury, he’s the one you call,” Leonie stared very slowly without taking her eyes off of Felix.

“Dimitri will behave himself…”

“No, you don’t understand. The Death Knight is...special. He’s considered by many to be a brutal handler who ‘breaks’ the wills of the creatures that’s under him, often in front of a live crowd. He doesn’t necessarily do tricks or any of that fancy shit—just put him in the pool with a predator and that’s the show. Think of it like bullfighting except in the water. If the Death Knight’s name is on a poster, you bet that arena is going to be filled for one _bloody_ afternoon.”

“Dimitri…,” Felix muttered straightly. The trainer shook his head and stood up. “No, that doesn’t make any sense! I trained him. He’s obedient—he’s not going to hurt anyone! What’s the point of me training him if the board members invited a handler who's gonna _break_ him right then and there?!”

“The Hrym idea was something that has been floating around for some time. But the original idea was for another handler from our Hall to take care of the shark once you were clear with him, but...well, I suppose they finally thought Hrym was better,” Leonie explained quietly as she stared at her empty glass.

“I can’t believe this.”

“But hey, if the shark really is trained, maybe he’ll survive the Death Knight. I doubt the handler would hurt him too much if he’s being good…but then again, the Knight is known to challenge and taunt the merfolk if the show is too boring. Maybe even hurt them.”

“I’ll have to go warn Dimitri in the morning before the show. After that, nothing else matters—I’ll get him out of that hellhole and we can be done with this ugly business,” Felix finally concluded with a shake of his head.

Before the man could get up from his seat, he felt the strong tug of Leonie’s hand around his wrist. He looked back and stared into the strong sober gaze of his partner. Her face was one so unrecognizable, like a stranger passing through on the same street—blending into all the white noise and commotion around him.

“Felix, I really don’t feel good about this. Can’t you feel it too? Something is ready to explode, nothing feels right anymore. Can’t you feel it?”

Felix gently nudged her hand away with a small frown. “It must be the alcohol talking, Leonie,” he said gently.

The trainer gave a small nod and turned away, even as the woman looked like she was going to say something else. The thick air of the bar tends to frizzle the mind and lead to hysterical delusion—and Felix wanted no alternatives to the future he had planned. He and Dimitri were almost there.

A house by the coastline.

___________________

The merfolk were always moved out of the pool whenever the cleaners came to do their deep scrubbing so it was not an unusual sight for trainers to find their creatures gone from the isolation ward. However, there were no cleaners in sight when Felix arrived at the end ward nor was there a Dimitri.

In fact, the shark’s pool was left alone and it seemed as though he disappeared all together.

Felix surveyed the entire perimeter of the water, peering into that murky water—nothing. Not even a shadow. The trainer tried to see if the shark was at the holding ward where they usually placed the merfolk during cleaning but he wasn’t there either. He ran his hands through the dark of his hair and breathed through his mouth—all the trainers were gone and there weren't any handlers around for him to ask.

Where in the world did everyone go?

Felix walked around the empty isolation ward, staring at all of the equipment and wet towels which decorated the cement floor. The main Exhibition Hall itself was bustling and quite full—fuller than any day Felix had ever seen before. In fact, the trainer was taken aback by the stampede that flooded past him, laughing and pointing excitedly at the different sights and stalls.

He cautiously stayed near the edge, watching the crowds with their strange hats and gift shop bags move about, almost like a colony; the Hall didn’t usually get this many people unless it was a special holiday and it seemed like they were all heading to a single place. Felix waited until the last tinkles of people passed him and stepped out onto the Hall grounds, covered in paper cups, chip bags, and left over plates slathered in sauce and meat; he stared back at the crowds and slowly began to follow them.

What was so interesting today?

As Felix slowly followed from a distance, he felt his foot pulled back irritable on a piece of gum. The trainer shot a vexed glare down until he realized that he stepped on more than just some kid’s chewed up piece of candy: a sticky poster was connected to the heel of his boot.

Felix stripped it off cleanly and held it out in front of his eyes with just the tips of his fingers. There, on the poster, was a handler he had never seen before. A tall, imposing man with light hair and eyes Felix could only describe as loveless—he probably loved once, but not anymore.

There was neither light or shadow to them, but the hollow space in which all elements were funneled out. And Felix felt a chill travel throughout his body in a long shiver.

Behind the man was the stereotypical image of a shark-man jumping out of the water with his teeth baring—this image used in the last few posters advertising the Exhibition Hall’s newest arrival back when Dimitri first came. And sprawled right across the poster, large assaulting font:

_Come see the Handler from Hell—The Death Knight of the Hrym—as he faces against the three-time Killer Shark! Buckle up for the blood match of the century!_

_This noon at the Center Stadium!_

**Noon**. Felix’s throat physically constricted as his fingers tore into the poster, eventually ripping the dam thing to shreds right then and there. They changed the time on him—it was supposed to be tonight, at least, that’s what he was told days before. But they changed the time on him.

Dimitri’s show was **now**.

Without wasting any time, Felix stormed off towards the crowds gathered in the middle of the Hall, a silent yet killing panic boiling the blood right beneath his skin. He thought he had more time, more time to warn and prep Dimitri.

They were so close—Felix couldn’t let any error slip through and yet, everything united against him. And the only thing keeping things together was the thin hope that Dimitri will keep his patience and guard himself well against the Death Knight until the show is over. Felix needed him to stay obedient until then.

They were so close—the house on the coast was just a day away. Felix could feel it right on his fingertips. This would all be over soon and the prison of the Exhibition Hall would merely be a terrible memory they would laugh over in the old age they grew in together.

But Felix needed to reach the shark first.

The Center Stadium was the largest pool in all of the Exhibition Hall, used for the grandest shows surrounding the more popular merfolk—starring orcas, dolphins, and sea lions. It was also the place which only the best of the Hall’s handlers could perform at including famed handlers from other resorts. The stadium was large enough to house thousands with spectators with live broadcasts on all corners of the area.

Felix remembered the first show he saw; it was right after his orientation and Leonie went to show off her beloved teacher—famed trainer-to-handler Jeralt Eisner. The man had performed numerous shows and established something of a reputation for the hall with his ever-so loyal mermaid—this green-ivyed seahorse whose dancing elegance and perfect synergy with Jeralt single handedly brought crowds from all over to watch the pair perform.

And then one day, the pair disappeared, and everyone pieced together that they probably ran away together. Back then, Felix considered Jeralt to be a mere fool—a love stricken idiot who threw away his entire career for a sea dragon he fell in love with during training.

Is Jeralt laughing at Felix from his house on the beach?

There was so much noise when the exhausted trainer finally reached the tail end of the crowds, all spread out and pushing through with a shrill chaos as everyone attempted to get closer to the center pool. The overhead televisions were already turned on with the current program on the countdown to five minutes before the viewing.

Felix’s eyes strained on the giant screens before he desperately searched around the area for a high spot. There was so much yelling and laughing and screaming that the boy could not breathe—he was being constrained by the second, a noose strapped around his throat and pulling so constantly.

Felix began to push his way to the front of the crowd, muttering small phrases of his employment at the Hall as passage, and eventually hit the inner railing which separated the excited crowd a few feet from the water itself. The spotlights suddenly came on, blinding the entire area momentarily in a dazzling light before the video popped up all across the widescreens. Felix rubbed his eyes and peered around desperately before staring at the water.

There he was—the handler from Hrym. The Death Knight. Those loveless, empty eyes leering back at him, at the crowds that gathered around the Central Stadium from his spot at the platform. Felix felt it again, the chill that completely overtook his body; this man was not a figure of compassion.

He neither exerted any care for the merfolk nor expected any care in return. And Felix recognized it almost immediately, the look of a man who was not here to entertain but to play his role as the butcher—the audience was simply a minor factor that came with the occupation, a customer staring at the meat display.

The Death Knight raised his hand. Slow, concise, but high above his head. And the silence fell upon the stadium like a fallen star.

“Good people of Fraldarius,” announced the man in a voice that was neither joyful or joyless—simply a tone emitted like the static of a radio. His foggy eyes traced over the crowd before staring straight ahead, up and over into the distance. “I am Jeritza of Hyrm and I was invited here today to discipline a killer in your community. A wicked predator who took the lives of three employees here at this wonderful hall. Beasts know not any humanity but their instincts to hunt and eat and mate, so there must be forgiveness for such things as they know no better.”

The man placed his hand down and stared down at the water, his mouth forming a thin line. “But I don’t have to forgive anything. Let us begin.”

_Back up, folks! The Death Knight of Hyrm will show you all how it’s done! Let’s bring in the sshhhhaarrrkk!!!_

Felix’s heart tightened and he looked all around the water and the pressure of his back swelled from everyone pushing up against him, excited and overwhelmed from the anticipation. There were too many sensations happening all at once, too many flashes in his vision and mind.

Where was Dimitri? Where did they leave him?

The poor trainer got his answer when the Death Knight gave a lone whistle through his teeth, effectively silencing the crowd once more. Suddenly, a shadow gradually circled deep around the water until a large, jagged fin slit across the water.

“Dimitri…,” Felix muttered in a small, broken mutter.

The Death Knight whistled once again and the shark—Dimitri, the handsome golden, blue-eyed prince of the Northern Seas, revealed himself in all of his splendor when the shark immediately stopped right at the platform. He peered up at the Death Knight in that way Felix instructed him—demure and quiet, to suggest absolute obedience and an eagerness to listen. Nonthreatening and submissive.

The deadly handler stared down at the shark; the corner of his eye twitched with the slight arch brow of his thin eye downward. But it quickly faded as it came and the Death Knight gestured with just his fingers for the shark to swim right up under him. Dimitri obeyed, which seemed to surprise the audience itself, and they looked on in a mixture of disappointment and confusion; Felix could only watch intently on the shark’s performance.

“What a curious little thing,” the Death Knight bemused with a hint of amusement. His lips curled up ever so slightly into a half smile, oddly humored, and he bent down to pick up the feed bucket beside his foot. “This shark looks like it's already been broken in, don’t you agree, folks?”

He wasn’t talking to them. He was talking at Dimitri who began to shift nervously in the water. But the audience roared jeers and noises of agreement regardless, muttering among each other of the prospect of being denied a bloodbath. And as the noises heightened, Felix’s stomach curled as he watched the Death Knight and Dimitri regard each other from their respective stations.

The shark also seemed immensely confused by the reception and perhaps even more so with how his handler regarded him from above—bemused yet somewhat vexed. Dimitri blinked very slowly and circled around the water while keeping his head low to show his patience. It was a gesture so childlike, filled with a certain innocence that the predator clearly preserved from his younger years. Felix always liked these small gestures from Dimitri and his heart thudded softly, but then the killing voice came once again.

“But, a predator is always a predator. They cannot be broken down, reformed, or shaped in any way. Their instincts remain and even after submission and obedience, it remain—merely hiding beneath a thin mask, which can snap at any moment,” the Death Knight continued, his voice a sinister hum over the speakers; the cameras lingered close on his face highlighting the cold and inhuman stare at Dimitri as though the shark were merely an insect near his boot.

He then knelt down, touching the feed bucket at his side, and picked up a mackerel. “I will show you good people such a terrible truth.”

The man then extended his arm out and dropped the fish directly down to the water without any fanfare. Dimitri immediately opened his mouth and accepted the gift in a single swallow. The cameras slowly panned over to the shark bobbling in the water; how he ate up the fish and slightly shivered from the pleasure of food, especially this early on.

Felix thought it was strange, feeding the shark this early without even making him perform a small trick or two to get him situated. The Death Knight was an unorthodox handler and Felix was already anticipating a full out assault against the poor shark. But not this. Hardly this.

And then, there came a _shift_.

It was not right away. But the cameras lingered on Dimitri’s face, lingered on the clear halt in the shark’s mildly pleasant demeanor. Dimitri had stopped entirely, staring out at the water with dark lines creased all across his handsome face, ones of confusion and fear. His hand slowly lifted up and briefly touched his throat.

Just a moment.

And then Dimitri began to shake. The shark’s body twisted and thrashed in the water with wild, erratic movements as the creature opened his mouth in a soundless cry. The audience fell upon gasps and shocked looks as Dimitri physically fought with himself in the water. And the Death Knight watched, bored.

Felix felt the blood rush into his arms, pushing against the railing with white knuckles, and the trainer nearly leaped over in a frantic effort to reach his shark. Then he stopped half-way when Dimitri came to a complete and utter stop. All breaths in the stadium came to a pause, even the Death Knight who leaned forward in his high platform to stare directly down at the shark.

The cameras lingered. The shark had slowly lifted its head and stared out into the crowd as though it awoken from a dream. A single blue eye as black as the night skies of winter. A black hole—void, bottomless, and all consuming. It was growing bigger and bigger until there was nothing but the vast space where all love and compassion disappeared behind instinct. And then it opened its mouth and revealed the end of the universe—white teeth, glistening with drooling hunger.

Felix lost his voice.

“Typical,” the Death Knight canted dully. He held the feed bucket in one hand, stretched his other long arm out, and slipped into the water like the drop of a coin—barely a ripple from the elegant entry.

Dimitri was still. He did not move, even as he craned his entire head to the man in the water. Felix could not recognize his love, with those swirling black eyes of bestial hunger or how his entire face—so handsome, so beautifully held between his hands in their nights—had suddenly become entirely cold and unfeeling like a shadow.

He was staring right at the Death Knight without blinking and the handler began to drift around the water with the bucket in his hand.

“You see, fine folk, I have been working with such creatures for years. And I have seen the sheer brutality of hunger many times, especially just inches away from my face. And I have seen the beasts who people claim are ‘broken in’,” he started coolly as he circled the water; the shark’s gaze followed the figure in the water, staying perfectly still in the middle of that pool.

The stadium was silent, not a noise, not a peep. And Felix was searching desperately for the breath he had lost in the chaos of it all. Nothing matters in his sight—not the women holding their mouths in awe; not the children hiding behind each other; not the men peering out with unwavering focuses. Just Dimitri and the shark was out of his reach.

“But beasts can never be broken in. No matter how many times you strike at them, they will always come back to bite you in full force. So what do we do when we are confronted with such animalistic debauchery? Well, allow me to demonstrate.” The Death Knight shook the feeding bucket in his hand, allowing the mic to pick up on the sloshing of blood and guts.

He kept his gaze straight at Dimitri, who regarded the handler—hollow and depraved. Like an animal in heat. A predator in wait. A hunter in the shadows. The man gave a cruel, white smile with a flash of something close to pleasure and then, without another word of warning, lifted the entire bucket and dumped it on himself.

A great phantom of a gasp passed through the crowd all the way to Felix who went white, muted and speechless. Realization struck him so harshly that he could not breathe or feel the violence of his heart pounding against his rib cage.

The Death Knight was trying to coerce Dimitri into attacking him. He was trying to bring out the Shark and all of its beastliness.

The blood drenched the fair-haired man like a holy baptism and spilled into the water, blossoming like ink until the entire surface clouded to a faint, sickly pink. Guts bobbled along the surface and began to surface around the bodies in a strange, twisted orbit. The smell was thick—it was palpable, as it slowly rose in the air and _sweltered_ in the heavily populated stadium like smoke.

All cameras turned to the shark, who went dead still by the sight of blood upon the man, coating the water pink and red, and brought forth the most intense smell, even Felix felt intoxicated in the head. A black eye shivering with restrained violence.

It was shaking, a black hole threatening to explode like a star. It was staring right at the Death Knight as he pointed to the creature and smiled softly— _dripping_ in guts and blood, and he beckoned gently like a virgin maiden on her wedding night.

Dimitri—The Beast growled at the base of his throat, leaned over as if he were ready to make the maddening dash to the Death Knight, and—

There was a blood curdling cry. The audience gasped and Felix leaned forward.

Dimitri had his head between his hands, reeling over in absolute pain. The shark’s breathing became immensely haggard, his chest heaving slowly as the creature peered around, half-crying. The black of his eye was wavering, glistening with tears, and more sounds of pain echoed from a broken throat.

The shark’s torn gaze lingered at the jeering crowd in a crazed search before landing right on Felix who stood clutching on the railing.

And came a moment of clarity. Ever so fleeting, ever so brief.

But absolute joy flooded Dimitri’s face where nothing existed between them but unconditional love and adoration. Felix felt his own cheeks burn with relief, his heart thumping wildly as he leaned over the railing with his arm stretched out towards Dimitri.

The shark smiled as the exalted, beloved worshiper he was and seemingly reached out to return Felix’s hand.

It all fell apart within that second. The Death Knight had struck the shark-man from the side and Dimitri’s glowing eye went dark again with lust and hunger. The Beast succumbed. He roared out in a thunderous fury and immediately dove into the red water, blood splashing all over the place until it died away in a single ripple.

“Every creature is guided by instinct. It doesn’t matter how good you train them. And as you see, blood alone has forced this monstrous thing to take hunt,” The Death Knight started as he swam right in the middle of the pool. He peered all around with plain impatience and continued on lowly. “And what I figured out is that a creature in a hunt is one so guided by their blood lust that it blinds them to rationale. Keeps them away from the realm of control and sight. So, when faced with such terrible dangers from down below---”

The water rumbled as though it were boiling and the crowd held their breath.

“We must face it with _feeling_!” The Death Knight announced loudly as he lurched forward and closely evaded the white jaws of death.

Women and children screamed as camera flashes blinded the entire area in a white flurry. s

Dimitri had launched himself ten feet up from the pool—the shark’s long muscular body, marked with the beautiful scars Felix touched during their long nights together, and it all glistened under the noon sun with blood trailing down black skin and ripped fins. Dimitri was beautiful—this Felix always knew, and yet the sight of his lover regressed so terribly back to his bestial state proved too much for him.

He needed to stop this at once.

Before the trainer could cross the railing, the shark had landed violently back down in the water, sending red waves onto the front rows of the stadium—the spectators screamed, covering their faces with their arms. The Death Knight swam away effortlessly and watched the water once more—Dimitri’s fin cut through the water like a razor, right to him.

And Felix witnessed why exactly the handler from Hrym got his namesake.

The Death Knight caught Dimitri’s biting head between his outstretched arms and violently flipped the entire creature over until he caught the creature’s neck in a tight vice. The shark’s powerful tail flailed, slapped against the red surface viciously and it roared out a sound so inhumane and furious; its muscular hands desperately pushed against the handler’s body in an attempt to push him off but to no avail.

“Wicked creature of the sea. Killer of three. To think you would ever pull one over me is a tragic mistake,” the man said in the cruelest laughter; it rang out like a funeral bell and his eyes flashed white with passion. “Now allow me to discipline you properly, beast!”

And without a second thought, the handler twisted the shark-man around his back and tossed him right into the platform; the creature struck the metal side and gave out a pained roar; the crowd jeered and laughed, some even breaking into applause from the strength.

Felix jumped over the railing. He needed to stop the twisted show now before the Death Knight of Hrym accidentally kills his beloved. He needed to get Dimitri away from here so no one can ever touch him again. The audience was too hyped and excited to notice the trainer trailing around the outer exterior of the pool.

And in the water, the Death Knight and the Beast began to fight.

Dimitri had recovered from the throw and began to charge blindly at the handler once more, only to be meant with painful maneuver after maneuver. He was flung against the ledge, tossed under water, and struck across the side effortlessly by the Death Knight who danced around the shark’s attempts to eat him.

Water and guts spilled out of the pool from the fighting and drenched Felix completely as he quickly made his way around the small gate of the inner pool.

His heart was in his throat. His eyes were wet and he could hardly see where he was going; he could not breathe as the disgustingly oppressive tight aroma of dead fish and fluids swirled in the air the closer he got to the main arena. Felix blinked rapidly and leaned against a nearby railing as he peered out towards the nearby water.

Silence was all that filled his throat. And silence was all he could ever have.

Dimitri, his Dimitri, still so possessed and mad, had limped his body against the ledge with a body so battered, his old scars had seemingly opened up and languished blood down the black of his skin. The soft gills on the upper side of his shark-like body breathed out thick pinkish bubbles into the surface and the shark’s dark eye was murky, consumed by fatigue and hunger.

Nearby, the Death Knight lurked close—barely a sweat broken upon his beautifully blood soaked face as he smirked tonelessly at the exhausted creature. He turned to the crowd, rubbing his hands together as if to clean himself.

“You see? Those who came from the sea will never lose themselves. We must understand that humanity for them is unobtainable and unreachable. All they will ever have is hunger. But as you see before you, that’s all this _thing_ will ever be. Don’t you agree, good people?”

The crowd, the vicious, mindless crowd of cruel delight roared in agreement and stamped their feet until the stadium rumbled. The handler—the bullfighter, elated by the audience’s approval, turned over to finally plunge his blade into the defeated bull and claim his victory. Only there was one problem: the bull was gone.

The people fell into another period of hushed silence and the Death Knight’s brow arched slightly, amused and somewhat caught off guard. He looked around the water, trying to look past its depths but everything was veiled red and pink, decorated by bobbling bits of flesh and skin—some from the fish and some even from the fighting.

All there ever was silence for it was the first to exist in the world. Before man or shark. And then the shark suddenly shot out of the water and bit off the handler’s hand.

And silence was what filled that air.

The Death Knight stared, somewhat surprised but still so toneless and detached at his bleeding wrist, which violently squirts all over the water. And Dimitri had swallowed the man’s hand whole and had taken on a whole new blood lust.

Flesh tastes different and everyone saw it—how the shark lifted its head up to the bleeding heavens, slowly licked its lips of the man’s blood and let out a manic, hollow laugh. It echoed across the silenced stadium, an omen of death from the reaper. And the shark grinned with all teeth and slowly turned to the wounded handler.

The audience began to scream.

Felix could not feel his legs. But he took off regardless down the stretch until his blood boiled against his skin and his mind ran with thoughts of a single name—loving repetition rendering all senses mute and white. From the corner of his eyes, trainers on standby had climbed around the pool side and attempted to distract the shark with noises and meat from the feed bucket.

But all that was in the Beast’s sight was his tormentor, who fell into a deadly-white state of shock; the Death Knight was too far away from the trainers to retrieve their aid and was too slow to reach the ledge.

The shark made another dash over to the body, teeth bearing sharply as he sunk them deep into the man’s right shoulder—the water reddened even more and the handler knocked the creature off of him without so much of a cry.

But the Death Knight was wavering. His skin had turned completely white and Felix could see the threat of sleep passing through his confused irises as he attempted to swim away from the shark. He was a mere man. And men die easy.

Dimitri slowly circled around the dying handler, fins twitching with excitement as his one eye stared dead on his prey—a monstrous smile slitting across his beaten face. The trainers were getting desperate, shouting at the Death Knight to swim to the ledge—they were throwing things at the shark and even taking pieces of fresh venison to pursue the creature.

Mothers clutched onto their children and there was so much crying in the audience that all the accumulated noise was a siren blaring right into Felix’s ears.

He stared at the sight before him, how the shark was getting closer and closer, and trapped the handler in the middle of the water—out of reach from help or land. This was it—the final death. The Death Knight would not survive the next onslaught. The shark had tasted forbidden flesh once more and there was nothing else he wanted than man.

Felix did not know what he was thinking. He kept running, over the railing and right up the stairs. All he cared about was stopping Dimitri, stopping the show, and preventing anyone else dying from Dimitri’s forced madness by the twisted machinations of the Exhibition Hall.

Their dream was so close that he could see it in the distance—the house by the Coast and somehow, impulsive thoughts of a love-stricken fool was all that funneled through his mind—if Dimitri could see him, the madness would clear up in a heartbeat.

And they would all be okay. 

Felix made his way over towards the edge of the pool. Dimitri suddenly stopped a foot away from the man. The height of the hunt emerged at the peak. The single black eye of the space turned inward and swallowed everything up in the universe. And there was left—the descent.

A moment between the now and then; the shark’s muscles rippled with excitement as he lurched forward and Felix jumped from the ledge.

The answer to the end of the universe was love. It blinds, torments, and kills. It is nothing but the black hole in the center that consumes everything and leaves nothing. It leaves even the most philosophical and logical of good men

mute to nothingness, to chaos, and to the unexplained irrationality of life. Perhaps Felix was a fool, for thinking so highly of his station in Dimitri’s life. Perhaps it was a mistake for indulging Leonie for so long and watching all those sci-fi romances with her in the dark of her apartment—all those scenes of the brainwashed lover snapping out of the villain's control with the presence of his beloved. Perhaps this was never meant to end in a dream after all, for a dream was a dream.

A house on the coast was too far away to ever reach in the first place. 

Thick, hot blood filled Felix’s gurgling throat as Dimitri clamped right into his slender neck—the same one he once decorated in sweet, gentle bites—with an inhuman snarl. A red violence stole his voice, stole his strength, and he went limp to the loving chaos.

Felix blinked at the burning, shearing pain before weakly lifting his arms up and held on to his beloved universe.

He held him even as the killing fangs as large as daggers sliced right through his hot pulsing veins. The depths blossomed red like beautiful twirls of coastal flowers dancing in the sunlight.

His own vision turned pure white and he could no longer see the face he grew to love so dearly. His body could no longer be felt, could no longer be controlled, or willed. The world turned black and no sounds came though.

And the only thing that Felix could hear was the silence of four words, spoken from a mouth in its last message to the loving universe.

A universe that it ripped him apart and ate him wholly from flesh to blood to bone.

And like lovers on their wedding night, they became one. Absolutely and evocatively inseparable.

_Dimitri, I love you—_


	4. The Emperor

There’s a body in the water. The shark is tearing it apart from the neck to the chest. It’s tearing at the heart. The people are screaming. The handler seems mildly surprised in his sickness.

And the shark can’t stop. It’s all too _sweet_. Too _tender_. Too _delicious_. He’s tasting the world and the world gave him the universe. It’s filling his mouth with passion and all he wants is to rip, tear, and eat.

And everything else—a mindless noise, which he could not hear nor cared. In his perfect world, all that mattered was the sickly sweet blood on his tongue and the warmth flooding his stomach with so much overwhelming love.

It was love in the purest form without any dilution or restraint, but utterly, pure love reserved for beings higher than both man and animal. And the shark was the happiest it has ever been in its entire life.

Truly and absolutely happy.

___________________

...

Ah, the main pool.

They must have put me back! Felix, I’m here! Where are you? I don’t see you anywhere.

...

Oh, this must be your day off. How selfish of me to keep seeking you. Even if you need some time off. I will wait. I will always.

___________________

It was lonely that night without you. No one came by to see me except for the feeders. They’re scared of me, even more so now for some reason.

They threw the bucket in the water and ran. Oh Felix, you would just feed me out of your hand, wouldn’t you? I won’t touch it, not unless it’s from you—I promise.

Felix, are you sick? Oh you must be sick. I haven’t seen you in so long. But I will wait. You always come to me. Always.

___________________

I wonder what they fed me a few days ago. Oh it’s so sweet. It’s still on my tongue. The sweetest blood. Felix, where are you? I have so many things to tell you. I mastered that trick you showed me last week. The one with the underwater flip.

I want to show you. I want to show you.

I want to swim with you today. I hate these tricks but not when you’re with me. They’re so fun together. I like feeling your body against mine. You’re so warm and beautiful.

___________________

I coughed up something this morning. It was strange: a single piece of hair.

It was pretty hair. Like yours. Black like yours. Long too. What did they feed me? Oh it tastes so wonderful. Felix, where are you? Felix, did you forget me? Please don’t forget me.

___________________

Your friend came by today. She looked like she was crying recently. Oh Felix, once you come back, you should comfort her. But come visit me! Remember, you’re mine; I’m yours.

Remember our promise?

___________________

This hair is so pretty. Why did I cough it up? It’s so pretty, so soft. I want to keep it with me forever. Felix, where are you?

___________________

I can’t remember anything from last week. It hurts my head when I try to remember. And that taste is still on my tongue. Oh, Felix, it’s so sweet. It tastes so familiar too. I just can’t decipher it.

Would you think that I’m weird that I kept the hair? It reminded me of you. How your hair used to flow freely in the water whenever we swam together. This hair is so long and pretty and black.

Like yours.

___________________

People keep coming by my pool. They point at me and whisper. I can’t hear them from here. Felix, I’m scared. If you were here, you would never let them come anywhere near me.

Where are you?

___________________

She came by again. She’s been watching me for some time. I broke my own vow of silence and asked where you were. She looked so scared and ran off.

Felix, did you forget me?

___________________

I’ve been dreaming a lot. But I don’t understand any of it. All I see is red, red, red. Felix, remember of all the poolside naps we took? Those were nice. Your hand on top of my head. It was so warm and soft. We should nap together again when you get back.

Okay? Promise me?

___________________

Pretty, long black hair. So long. So soft. Like yours. Like yours.

___________________

I think I’m forgetting you. Your face, your voice, your body. I need to see you again. I need to hold you again. Oh Felix, please come back before I lose myself.

___________________

You promised. A house on the beach, remember? Our dream. You promised.

___________________

I saw you in my dreams. You were holding me, kissing me, loving me. There was so much blood. So much flesh. The bones went down easy. And your heart. It’s beating at the bottom of my stomach.

Oh Felix, what a terrible nightmare. When you return, I will hold you until it all goes away.

___________________

She came back again. She’s not scared anymore. I asked where you went. She asked if I remember the show.

Didn’t it go well?

___________________

I need your touch. Your hands on me. Your hair on my body. Your breath in my ear. I need to hold you and keep you safe with me forever.

But I can’t remember how you looked. Your beauty is disappearing from my mind. And I’m so scared. I’m so scared. Why can I remember you?

Oh Felix, please hurry. I’m losing you. I’m losing myself.

___________________

The nightmares are getting worse. You’re begging me. You’re crying. You’re holding me. Why are you crying, beloved? Where is pain?

I’ll make it go away. I’ll make everyone go away so it’s just us in this world. You and I at our slice of heaven on the coast.

Isn’t that a wonderful dream, Felix?

Felix?

Felix?

___________________

I don’t remember how you sound. How did you sound? Can you say I love you?

I love you.

I love you.

It’s okay. You don’t have to say it. I’ll wait, even for an eternity. But I love you.

Felix I love you.

___________________

“ **He’s dead**.”

___________________

Felix, you tasted so sweet, so sweet, so _delicious_. Heaven. It won’t leave my tongue. Your flesh, your blood, your bones, they’re all here. They’re all inside of me. I can feel you _inside_ of me. We’re _one_! Oh, my felix, my felix, we are one. _Ahaahahaha_ I can taste you. I can taste you. I can taste you. Ahahaha You’re so _sweet._ Nothing can compare. Oh god god god, I love you. Felix, can you hear me? I love you. I love you. Do you love me? Please say you love me! You love me! You love me! Ahahaha what a wonderful taste on my tongue. I’m so _happy_. I’ll never be alone. Felix, I love you. Ahahaha I love you. Please say it. I need your voice. I don’t want to forget, _ahahahah_. Please say I love you. I love you.

 _I love you_.

___________________

F e l i x isgjhdcjdsvw i l o v e y o u

I dujfjvyf l o v e y o u

P l e a s ehejdisjaba s a y i t

I l o v e hdsdhsd you

L o haiaja v e

Y o u

___________________

The shark’s been talking to himself, Felix.

To this piece of black hair he has in his hands. He nuzzles up to it, kisses it, and calls it your name. I don’t think he even acknowledges anyone else in the ward. Not even the feeders when they come by. Not even me these days. It’s just the hair, gently held between those clawed fingers of his. He’s crying and laughing mad and won’t let go. He says I love you and sleeps with it at night, sometimes screaming for you to come and hold him.

You’re not here anymore.

...

I think you broke him for good, Felix. There’s no use for this poor creature anymore. But I will fulfill your wish. I’ll make sure he gets home.

___________________

Leonie was not sure what she was doing.

All she remembered was knocking out the driver before he got in his truck to the Labs and stealing the vehicle away. After a good fifty miles down the road and numerous unanswered phone calls from her co-workers, the truck was able to reach the gray waters of the Fraldarius Coast by the evening.

It was cold, colder than any day she has ever experienced in the winter, but she wasted no time as she flicked up the overhead switch and let down the cargo door into the icy shoreline.

The tank was inside, the water as dark as the night. But _he_ was there—Leonie knew he was there. But she couldn’t let fear petrify her now, not when she was so close. The woman turned on the conveyor belt and slowly watched as the tank was brought down into the sand, water sloshing all inside the tank.

A fin flashed in the water and Leonie’s throat tightened. But she kept calm, even as the conveyor stopped and left the tank right on the shoreline looking out towards the cold, black sea.

The woman breathed into her hands, trying to warm up before clutching onto the tight steel latches, which sealed the front glass door. After a few strong yanks, the door dropped into the sand and all of the water gushed out into the shoreline.

The body went with the water and slid right into the soggy sand. A body marked with white scars, broken fins, and black skin save for a paling human torso. He was still, so bitterly, bitterly still.

Leonie stared at him for a minute, watching for any signs of movements. Finally, the woman cautiously walked over and gently nudged the shark’s broad shoulder.

He was awake. But he wasn’t moving. His eye were open and staring out at the sand, glassy and murky like a dead man floating in the water. It didn’t seem like he was breathing.

Leonie nudged the shark-man once again and leaned in.

“Look, I brought you home. See? Now get up and get back into the ocean,” she said gently, even pushing the palms of her hands against the creature’s marble back. He was cold—so, so cold like ice. Barely a breath of warmth is found anywhere.

And the only thing that came out of that body was a weak murmur.

“Felix…”

Leonie’s heart pained sharply but she blinked away the hot tears threatening to break through her eyes and pushed the shark harder, even patting the creature’s head. She could hear the vibrations of a mad mantra, going off beneath his sobbing breath.

So inaudibly and crazed yet she knew exactly what he was saying. It was the broken voice of a widower, still so fresh from mourning that the grief was thick in his breath. He held something very small and very thin in between his fingers.

Leonie already knew what it was—she didn’t want to say it.

“He died for you. The least you could do is live. Do you really want all of his efforts to be in vain?”

It came out as a growl, which even surprised her, and the sudden ferocity alone forced the shark’s body to twitch. But he didn’t respond back in kind, merely muttering wildly, faster, desperate.

Strange how a powerful killer of four and the so-called King of the Northern Seas was so emotional, not that Leonie could blame him in any way.

“Please get up,” she pleaded quietly and stood back. “I drove all this way for him. The last you can do is return to the ocean and live out your years in freedom. I think that’s what he would want.”

“...dead.”

“Yes, dead. And you’re disgracing him by lying here. Please go home, Dimitri.”

The shark slowly raised his head and regarded the woman from afar with his blue eye, cast over in a grieving confusion. The crying hadn’t stopped but the distraction was a fleeting sanctuary from the pain.

She nodded solemnly, understanding the silent language of looks.

“He told me your name. I think he would want me to make sure you get home. So,” Leonie started and extended her arms out to gesture to the wide, black ocean around them, “here we are. And I think it’s time you return to your kingdom, your majesty.”

“...killed him.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said very softly, fighting the urge to kneel down and pat the shark’s head in consolation. Instead she shook her head and turned around back towards the truck, suddenly inaccessible and cold. “But if you’re going to lie there and die, go ahead. Render everything Felix has done for you useless. But he wanted you to live. Are you really going to soil his legacy like that? You are his legacy.”

Leonie kept her eyes on the fading horizon. She could feel Dimitri’s gaze linger right at her back for a long time—neither begging or perplexed, but staring as if to uncover some mystery of the universe but is unable to due to one dangerous truth: the world owned nothing to man and beast, and whatever answer they sought will never be revealed.

And Dimitri stared. And Leonie ignored him. And the world around them roared with waves breaching against white rocks and the gray beaches. The birth of the universe began at the water; it ends on the coast.

Finally, after a minute, the woman reluctantly turned around back towards the calling shore.

The shark was gone.

___________________

Dimitri woke up.

Perhaps not truly woke up but merely stirred himself from an incredibly shallow and near-awake dream, one that possess him in the moment. The shark blinked rapidly as his head rang dryly and he looked around to find himself fallen asleep on the pool’s ledge. Something warm and soft ran through his hair and Dimitri peered up to look upon the dark-haired beauty of his trainer.

Felix looked bored. He always looked bored as if vexed by the peace of the moment, but Dimitri knew better. He was relaxing, gently running his fingers through the shark’s golden locks and humming nonchalantly.

The massaging sensations of the man’s hand against Dimitri’s scalp, the very soft hum from a deep throat, and weary eyes of affection slowly gave away to utter submission and the shark leaned into the touch, his tail wagging uncontrollably in the water like a dog’s.

And they stayed like that. Absorbing each other’s heat, each other’s presence, so viciously hungry in their shared silence. Felix’s body heat always sought Dimitri and seeped deep into the shark’s cool skin; Dimitri pursued it eagerly, keeping his head right up against the trainer’s affectionate palm.

After a while, Felix finally leaned in close, craning his head a bit to capture the shark’s lips in a soft, childlike kiss. He tasted like Almyran pine and cigarettes, a strange bitter spice that settled so nicely on the shark’s tongue and he pushed forward to taste more—blood. As sweet as the purest honey.

Felix was the first to pull away but he did not leave, choosing to hover an inch away with the red of his eyes pointed right into Dimitri’s. Beautiful sunsets bleeding into the skies.

“You taste better without the disgust of fish on you…”

“What do I taste like, Felix?”

The trainer hummed and the corner of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. Not enough for a smile, but far from a frown. He tilted his head and gave it a simple second thought—just to be coy.

“Sea salt...and rain. Not like rainwater but rain—storms. Something violent and cold,” Felix muttered softly.

Dimitri arched a brow quizzically. “That’s a taste?”

“You taste _cold_. And _wet_. And _salty_. That feels like a storm.”

“Hm,” the shark relaxed back down against the ledge with a lazy grin. “I did come from a part of the coast that was always raining. Typhoons and rainstorms nearly every day.”

“It shows,” Felix said with a nod. He allowed the shark to roll his head right into his lap, even gently patting the top of his head in a rare show of open affection.

A minute passed; water was dripping from some place distant yet near off, echoing into the ward.

“You’ll have to find a house that’s not too close to the coast. I mean, it would be nice if you and I were closer but I wouldn’t want you to wash away from the storms,” Dimitri finally muttered, snuggled his cheek against the soft parts of Felix's thighs.

The trainer hummed but did not speak. The shark continued, more eager.

“You know, when I was a boy, my father’s friends would live in these cool cliff side observatories overlooking the coast so they can study the sea life safely without fear of the shoreline storms. Maybe you should get one! Is it too expensive? Still, it sounds safer than being so close to the water, don’t you agree, Felix?”

He said nothing. His fingers softly dug into Dimitri’s scalp, scratching him with utmost gentleness.

“Well, maybe we can do a direct house on the beach. Oh! What about a boat house? We can travel together to seas so beautiful and we can always be together. And I can reach you directly too! That actually sounds better…”

Warm, warm fingers running through his hair and the silence—the absence of Felix’s usual deep voice sent a gradual heat swelling in Dimitri’s heart. He curled into the trainer’s lap, shuddering against his beloved’s body. He wanted to laugh.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter does it, F-Felix? As long as we’re together. You could get a shack on the beach for all I care—I just want to be with you. You want to be with me, don’t you?”

Silence. Fingers as soft as silk slowly through golden locks. But it was slowing. Everything was slowing. Something was breaking. Perhaps it was already broken. Dimitri actually laughed—a hollow broken noise, and he rubbed his face into Felix’s lap. Suddenly, he was scared. Why was he scared?

“Can you see it, Felix? The house on the beach? You and I free and together at last. Oh, it’s so close. It’s so close, I can touch. I can’t wait...I can’t wait for that day.” The shark felt his chest heave and a dry sob choked at the base of his throat. And all he could feel were soft fingers and a voice that never came. “F-Felix?”

And then the trainer’s hand slowed. And suddenly, the presence of warmth soon departed him; Dimitri looked up desperately only to catch Felix looking away—looking somewhere so far off and unreachable, a place detached from the small heaven they shared. His look was absent, it was hollow, it was empty.

Finally, the trainer broke away and returned the shark’s intense stare; he smiled lovingly and reached over to cup Dimitri’s cheek with astonishing gentleness and ran his thumb right beneath his wet blue eye.

A final smile. Tired and sleepy.

“I have to go now,” Felix said in a voice too soft to belong to him.

Dimitri’s heart raced. “Where are you going?” he asked urgently, tightly grasping onto Felix’s wrists and keeping him close. “Stay here. Stay with me.”

The trainer shook his head, resigned. “I have to go, Dimitri. I have to.”

“Will you come back? You’ll come back to see me, right?” 

Felix gently pulled his hands out of the shark’s deadly vice, not once reacting with any pain. But he did not depart; he stared at Dimitri, who had begun to hyperventilate in the water—crying silently with a violent shudder of his entire body. Then the trainer leaned in and pressed his lips against the shark’s forehead and muttered a confession meant for no God except him. 

“I love you, Dimitri.” 

“You will come back tomorrow, won’t you? Remember, Felix? R-Remember the house on the beach? _Remember_?” 

Those warm lips pulled away and Felix had suddenly stepped back in an eerie resolve. His eyes no longer graced Dimitri and his back turned to the shark—he was staring out at the entrance of the ward, to a place the shark will never reach. 

“Felix? Felix? Felix, please come over here. Let me touch you.” 

Dimitri laughed out, manic and crying, and shook his head from the tears of his eye; he clambered wildly against the ledge and tried to pull himself onto the cement floor, to Felix. All to Felix. He needed to reach him but the trainer began to walk away and the shark could only cry from the water. 

“Please….I don’t want to be alone—please don’t leave. I love you, Felix! I love you, I love you, I love you—don’t leave me!” 

But the trainer did not hear him. He was so far off that Dimitri could only see the slivers of long dark hair trailing behind him—he could taste him. He could taste him and Felix tasted delicious. So sweet. So soft. Like honey. The sweetest thing on his tongue. 

The voice of humanity dying on his lips and all there was left was the roar of the tempest—of raw, agonizing grief. And in his weeping madness, the shark cried out into that light until there was nothing left and his throat burned with fire. 

And in the empty ward, all the lights gradually fell and the shark was left alone in that darkness, floating aimlessly in the black water with no land in sight. Neither house nor shore, but an unconditional, absolute love that can no longer be reached—an absent Goddess upon the earth. 

Dimitri stared out in the pitch blackness. It did not scream at him. It did not answer him. And it had no obligation to him.

So he closed his eyes and waited for the edge of dawn.

___________________

_I’m going to buy a house by the water, right on the edge of the Fraldarius Coast. So you and I can be together. And even if you have to go far, you will know where I am._

_Always._

_Goodnight Felix._

___________________

“Your majesty.”

“Your majesty.”

“Your majesty, you’re dreaming again.”

“Am I?”

The King slowly opened his one eye, still crusted over from a deep slumber, and allowed his vision to adjust to the warm waters of the summer afternoon. Light filtered in from a rare sun above, cascading golden veils all along the ocean floor where the shiver of shark-folk was napping between the soft clusters of kelp and coastal flowers in bloom.

A shark pup was swimming right in front of him, amber-eyed with hair as black as midnight. It was not his for the King never took on a mate, though this one was his godchild.

But if he had, he always assumed their children would come to look like _him_. Perhaps cruel fate had caught up to him all these years and provided with him the image of his fantasy offspring.

Either way, the King shook off the sentimentality and rose from his kelp nest, greeting his little one with a weary smile. The pup swam over and rested alongside him.

“What were you dreaming about your majesty?” He asked, nestling his tiny cheek on the latter’s strong arm.

“Simple things really. Perhaps it would make you laugh if you heard about them,” The King replied simply; a warm current passed between them and he could see a school of mermaids passing by the shiver on their way to visit the surface world.

“Try me.”

“Hm, let’s see here.” He rubbed his chin and peered up, towards the ray of sunlight that danced upon their heads like a halo. Just above were seagulls flying overhead and the faint sounds of sailboat bells. “A house by the coast.”

The pup’s brow arched, inquisitive. “A house? Just a house?”

“Just a house. A small one, but it has to by the water you see.”

“No, I understand that your majesty. But...that’s it?”

The King nodded. “That’s it.”

“Wow.” The pup blinked, unable to make sense by the sheer simplicity of it all. “Now I want to make fun of you.”

“Go ahead,” the older shark-man laughed out; he liked this one’s sense of sardonic humor. It made him feel young and powerful again, not just an elderly, decrepit creature sleeping on the ocean’s bottom for most of the day and night.

“I mean...you can’t live in a house...unless it was one of those new underwater houses people make nowadays so they can talk to us,” the little one stated with a small, satisfied nod. “Papa and I visited one the other day! There were so many visitors from the surface there, your majesty.”

The King smiled softly. “It was never really about the house, you know. It was more about the person inside the house—just like all your new friends.”

“Oh, don’t say it out loud. It sounds so embarrassing,” the pup grumbled, red-faced. “But who was the person in the house?”

“Someone you love dearly. Think of the house as a metaphor.”

“Your majesty, please stop using human literary terminology again—I can’t keep up.”

“It symbolizes something! You know, your house is your heart? What do you keep in your heart? Those you love.”

The pup gave a funny laugh and allowed its body to drift away from the King and back over to the front where its tiny gills flailed out excitedly and with childish humor. His eyes, two burning sunsets of a past never forgotten, blinked with young worship and he shook his head.

“I think your age is catching up to you, your majesty,” he remarked without any malice, simply childish and rude as was his youth.

“Just because I sleep all day doesn’t mean I’m old,” the King grumbled beneath his breath as he lulled his head against his arms with half-lidded eyes.

The pup cocked his head. “Didn’t you raise my dad?”

“Okay, that’s enough from you.” The elderly shark grimaced at the little one. “Where’s your father. You should be with him right now.”

“He’s talking to the surface people on the coast. They’ve been chatting every day about stupid stuff. I rather prefer to hear stories from you.”

“I thought you said my stories were ‘boring’,” the King said with a mocking emphasis on ‘boring’ though it was all said with a gentle smile.

In his age, his ramblings in the past were more or less rather tedious for their shiver’s young, especially when they have friends on the surface to be with. He figured that their constant presence around him was more so to humor a useless title.

“You’re the only shark to make it to the surface. I think that’s interesting.” The pup tilted his head. “Wasn’t that back before we became friends with the humans?”

“Indeed, but those stories are hardly appropriate for one so young...,” the King said, hesitantly.

“But you told my dad…”

“Yes, because he’s older and he, too, lived in that period before this peace of ours. He understands.”

“Please, your majesty. Knowledge of the past can’t hurt me,” the pup murmured with pleading eyes. Red eyes of eternal sunsets bleeding into the sky. Eyes that haven't left the King’s sweet dreams since his youth. They followed him here, from the realm of slumber to the now. And somehow, he softened from their eager gaze and shifted back.

“I suppose...I could cut some details out. But you can’t let your father know I told you this or he’ll bite off my head,” he finally said solemnly.

The pup nodded and swam closer until he was laying just a few feet away from the elder shark. The King cleared his throat and tried to search for the proper words to start such a story for it was nearly impossible to downgrade tragedy. But it was important for the future to understand the past and this, he knew well. Finally, after a minute, the King finally began.

“I’m sure your father or the schools have told you that humans used to eat merfolk. But more so as an exotic meal outside of usual seafood. They used to catch us and eat us with fishing boats. That’s how my father, the last King, died.”

He stopped, gauging the pup’s face for a troubled reaction. There was none except a bored nod—he definitely heard this fact much too many times for his own liking. And the King continued on, a little more confident.

“Well, along with eating us, some people thought it would be funny to...capture us. Put us in these huge tanks so other humans can come and look at us. And then, there were other uses for us—entertaining full crowds of people at these live shows. They make us perform tricks and do things that humans found funny. And we couldn’t leave—they kept us in these small bodies of water and only took us out to make people laugh.”

“That sounds...scary,” the little shark-boy muttered to himself; his gaze was burning holes into the King’s face, suddenly so curious and worried. “Did they hurt you?”

“Yes. Yes, they did. And I hurt them too. I hurt a lot of them,” he explained weakly, every word puncturing his old heart like a hook’s stab.

“But...how did you get out? Papa said all those resorts closed after you found him and the other parents.”

The King’s face, aged and gray from unspoken years beyond the pup’s time, gradually lifted up with a wistful thought—dreaming awake of a dream so pleasant and sweet that the elder shark almost looked drugged. He was merely peering far off into a time he could hardly recount, to a _face_ he no longer remembered.

Even the memento he held on for so long had drifted away from his clenched hands in the years past. But what he did remember existed in description and the pup’s rebellious stare and dark hair was as close as he will ever get to such a memory.

“I fell in love,” the King confessed softly, as if the words are forbidden to speak beyond the small space they shared.

“With another shark?”

“No. Not with a merfolk.”

The pup’s red eyes widened, but just for a brief moment, before softening; he turned his head to the side and the King could see a faint, pinkish tint on his cheeks. There was no shame present, simply what he could determine was a confirmation of a long speculation. Perhaps some confidence in his own feelings towards humans.

“He saved me and I was able to return to sea after all. So, here I am,” the King continued, gesturing to the warm waters around them, to the kelp and flowers they slept on.

“Is he…”

The pup stared at him, caught the flash of pain that swiped across the elder shark’s ancient features, and looked away. It was strange how easy the youth could understand the language of sheer silence and respected it well.

Suddenly, the King got tired. He wanted to sleep again.

It was hard to summon so much strength and energy these days; it even took much work for him to even move from one nest to another without having to go extremely slow, and the King did not want his shiver to slow down for him. He slowly swam closer and placed a strong hand on the top of the pup’s head, patting the little one with a fatherly affection.

“Think not of it. I’m just happy to watch a friendship blossom with the surface world. Of course, it helps that killing us would be considered illegal in their world. But still, it brings so much joy to this old one’s heart to see such happiness,” the King said.

“I made a human friend, you know,” the pup started excitedly. His small fins wiggled and his tail swayed from side to side. “This pretty boy with the prettiest eyes—like the ocean. He’s really nice too!”

“How did you two meet?”

“He’s the son of mom’s human friend. He visits me every day and brings mackerel.”

The King’s old heart was singing; where has he heard this song before, of every day visits and treats of mackerel.

Suddenly, there was a lone call, echoing across the field of sleeping sharks and dancing kelp clusters. It was the pup who lifted his head up first, eyes drawn over towards the near horizon where a drifting shadow of a shark passed over the shiver.

“I think your father is looking for you,” the King muttered as he laid back down against the nest of kelp with half-lidded eyes.

“Oh, come now! You’re going back to sleep?!” The pup exclaimed.

“I’m tired.”

“You’re so old.”

“Please, if I could trade this body for the one in my youth, I would. Now go on before your father gets angry,” the elder shark said and even waved his hand in the direction of the parent. He was growing tired, too quickly, too heavy, as though he had been hit by a spell.

Perhaps it was one of _those_ days.

The pup merely scoffed. His red eyes burned wildly and a sneer slit across his pretty young face, distorting the features to something of an adult’s. Distantly cruel and mocking. And yet, the King felt like crying when he saw the young one look at him, almost like a distant message from a place so deep within, the King recognized it right away.

“Fine. I’ll leave you to your eternal nap, your majesty. But I’ll come back and wake you up when we go hunt. I want to show my friend how good I am at it,” the pup said, smirking arrogantly.

The King could only spare a smile. He was already slipping away towards the gentle darkness, losing the longtime battle to the age of time as such is all life in this universe. But before the elder one returned to his usual nap in the sun, the pup swam over and pressed a chaste, child-like kiss on the King’s cheek—a sign of respect in their shiver for their elders, and backed away, blinking away those descending eyes of wonderful sunsets.

“Have a good sleep, King Dimitri.”

And the King fell back into a long and warm slumber, the relief of the darkness welcoming him like an old friend. One he had not seen in many, many years.

___________________

It was only momentary.

The elder shark always ended up waking up in the middle of his naps and found it hard to fall back asleep. However, this time, he did not wake up among his sleeping shiver of sharks.

Dimitri opened his one eye and peered out towards the great beyond, where all around him was nothing but the great blue sea.

There was nothing here; not the sleeping sharks nestled in the kelp fields, not the merfolk hunting in the foreground, not even the pups who swam off to chat with the surface people.

Nothing here but the great, big blue ocean.

The King looked around and wondered if he was carried off by a passing current and no one bothered to stop his body. And yet, why did it seem like this place was far away, further than any place he has ever been in his entire life. Far away and absolutely inaccessible.

And somehow, he was not scared. In fact, fear and confusion were not present here. Just existing. Just warmth. And there came knowledge.

Dimitri picked a direction and started swimming. It was here that he realized how much more energy and strength he had, a far cry from his usual lethargic state. The shark kept swimming and swimming, and the currents of times slipped over his body and reformed it to something more familiar and grounded—his long lost youth had returned to reclaim him.

Eventually, the water glowed with a clear, heavenly blue and Dimitri was able to see in the distance—all of the distance. He saw everything: the coasts of every land, the sands they all carried, the suns and stars they all shared, and the people and merfolk who occupied these places. Unified and utterly happy.

But these places were not for him; he was passing over individual paradises to his where, gradually, the ocean water turned black with a bitter coldness of the north and the skies above turned inward into a sea of white stars, glittering among themselves like dancing planets in orbit.

The coldness bristled at his skin and yet, it did not hurt. It did not sting or bite. In fact, the cold and the night welcomed him eagerly and the shark kept swimming into that darkness.

Soon, the ocean ended and the shark met with the white, icy shoreline.

He’s been here before. And yet, he wasn’t. He was here at the shore in another life and yet has never truly been to this shore until now. It had been waiting for him, for a very long, long time.

The shark emerged from the dark waters, breathing in the cool air of his northern paradise. His eyes greeted the night sky, endless with small white dots sprinkling all along the vast blackness of space, and the full moon that hung low near the waves.

And on the shores of ice, there was a single house. Just a simple house, lit up with the gentle glow of candlelight at the window.

Just a house. And yet, Dimitri understood right away that he had returned home.

Home.

Suddenly, a shadow passed over the light in the window; the knob jiggled and then the door opened very slowly with a creak.

Dimitri lifted his head up as his heart returned to the sea, to the earth, and to the sky above in a thousand beats. The song of love.

“Felix?”

___________________

They were ships passing through the night.

Sailing slowly upon in a shared ocean of stars but fated to never meet again in this first life. Disappearing through the thick fog and to the unreachable beyond.

There on the other side was a house. A small house on an icy shore and a cold sea. Just enough for one person and nevermore. But it will never be empty as is the ocean that sleeps nearby.

And in the black of the night, two souls emerge and reunite where the water meets the land. Silent lips eagerly seeking each other, whispering oaths to never part again.

And they never did.

**Author's Note:**

> Dimilix...is my life...but I also like...horror and tragedy. Please accept my offering. 
> 
> I have a [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/Meatbike344)


End file.
